Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 16 – Last weekend,
Beijing announced that its second aircraft carrier had begun sea trials, an
especially disturbing development from Moscow’s point of view where analysts
are wondering when or even if Russia’s only aircraft carrier will in fact be
refit and made operational again (vz.ru/society/2018/5/16/922643.html).
But that is hardly the only bad news
the Russian navy has received in the past few days. First and most serious,
Russian analysts say that China’s naval buildup is leaving Russia in the dust:
At present, China is launching five new frigates every year, while Russia is
currently building one every ten (svpressa.ru/war21/article/200297/).
Second, The Times of India has
announced that Delhi has “consciously diversified its arms imports” away from
Moscow because “Russia doesn’t make deliveries on tie, raises prices during the
course of the contract, blocks the transfer of technology, and is “insufficiently
reliable” in delivering spare parts (cont.ws/@t34/946864).
And third, Russia’s own Audit Chamber
announced that in 2016, the Russian military misused 544.5 billion rubles (nine
billion US dollars), much of that coming in high-priced naval construction
where corruption is easiest and has long been a major brake in Russian ship
building (rbc.ru/economics/16/05/2018/5afb0aa29a79474409677396).
According to Vladimir Tuchkov of Svobodnaya pressa, China is set to
increase its advantage relative to Russia and other countries. Some 5,000
highly trained specialists were involved fulltime in building its new aircraft
carrier which is technically far superior to Russia’s Admiral Kuznetsov.
The average age of these specialists
is 36, far younger than at Russian yards.
“And this means,” Tuchkov says, that these people not only are ready to
bring their energy and up-to-date knowledge to bear on developing the Chinese
navy but will be able to do so for two decades or even more into the future (svpressa.ru/war21/article/200297/).
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