What Aircraft Carrier?
By Peter Navarro and Greg Autry Huffington Post China’s first aircraft carrier recently slipped from its berth with little fan fare. The start of sea trials of the 1,000 foot long flattop gained little media attention in an America that is, as usual, too caught up in its own angst to notice external threats. While financial markets boiled, the ship formerly known as the Varyag and rumored to have been rechristened “Shi Lang” sailed out of Dalian harbor to test its battle systems and scare the hell of out China’s neighbors. The story behind this boat is both entertaining and highly instructive in the ways of Chinese state capitalism and its political and business norms. The Varyag was originally intended to be the pride of the Soviet fleet and was nearly complete when the collapse of that other evil empire resulted in its abandonment at a Black Sea berth. In 1998, she was auctioned off by the Ukrainian government to a subsidiary of a Hong Kong front company, secretly controlled by the C
