(Corrects data about islands distribution in paragraph 12)
By Ryan Woo and Xiuhao Chen
BEIJING, April 23 (Reuters) – China teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims.
The video issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning, Shandong and Fujian.
Titled “Into the Deep”, it showed a 19-year-old named “He Jian” joining the group, unleashing public speculation that it was referring to a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, as the navy recruit’s name is a homophone of “nuclear vessel” in Mandarin.
The three aircraft carriers now in service are all conventionally powered, carrying sequential pennant numbers 16, 17, and 18. The new recruit’s age, 19, suggests “He Jian” will conform to the numbering convention.
China’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on Wednesday’s video.
Beijing is spending billions of dollars to build a “bluewater navy” allowing it to project power far from its shores, a goal dating from 2012, when President Xi Jinping became leader of the ruling Communist Party.
Action sequences in the video featured military drills and strikes in the Pacific. But it also sent a message to democratically-governed Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, despite Taipei’s rejection of the claim.
The video showed an exchange between a naval officer and his son “Xiao Wan”, the latter’s name an allusion to Taiwan.
“I don’t want to go home just yet. I want to play out a little longer,” the boy says.
His father responds, “Xiao Wan, don’t be difficult. Mum is waiting for you at home. Let’s go home.”
ISLAND BUILD-UP
China’s natural resources ministry, in an article published in the official People’s Daily, urged greater efforts to “protect” the more than 11,000 islands China claims.
The vast majority of these are located within 100 km (62 miles) of the coast, with nearly 60% in the East China Sea, around 30% in the South China Sea and the rest in the Bohai and Yellow Seas, an official Chinese tally showed in 2018.
China has built artificial islands, airstrips, and military facilities during extensive land reclamation efforts over the years in disputed waters in the South China Sea.
Last September, Beijing declared a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal to assert its claim to the atoll, a long-time flashpoint with the Philippines.
“The facilities on its artificial island bases have allowed Chinese law enforcement, naval, and militia vessels to spend every day of the year patrolling the waters of its neighbours up to 1,000 nautical miles from the Chinese coastline,” said Gregory Poling of the CSIS think tank.
But China’s presence in the busy waterway did not deter a senior Taiwan official from a rare visit to the Taiwan-controlled island of Itu Aba, part of the contested Spratly Islands.
Itu Aba has a runway long enough to allow military re-supply flights from Taiwan, while a new wharf opened in 2023 can host a 4,000-ton patrol ship.
The Philippines, the United States and partner nations started military drills this week, including maritime operations, across the Philippine archipelago.
The exercises projected a multinational front against China in a region that is a conduit for more than $3 trillion in annual ship-borne commerce.
“Beijing seems to have hit a point of diminished returns,” said Poling, who heads the think tank’s Southeast Asia programme.
“It has not succeeded in stopping a single Southeast Asian energy project, resupply or construction mission, or the like, in at least four years.”
(Reporting by Ryan Woo and Xiuhao Chen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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