Mumbai:
If you’d stood on the docks of Ukraine’s Mykolaiv shipyard in the late 1990s, you’d have seen a ghost of the Cold War: a rusting, unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier, a relic of a vanished empire that seemed destined for the scrapyard. Fast forward to today, and that same hulk, reborn as China’s Liaoning, sails the high seas as a floating fortress and the pride of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). The story of how China acquired, transformed, and weaponised this vessel is more than just a tale of engineering and espionage—it’s a masterclass in patience, strategy, and ambition that holds crucial lessons for the Indo-Pacific, especially for India.The Great Chinese Carrier Heist
Let’s begin with a bit of cloak-and-dagger. In 1998, China had a dream: to join the exclusive club of nations operating aircraft carriers. But building one from scratch is a monumental task—immensely costly, technologically risky, and incredibly time-consuming. So, Beijing’s strategists devised a clever shortcut. Their eyes fell upon the Varyag, the half-built Soviet carrier left languishing in Ukraine following the USSR’s collapse.
China, however, didn’t arrive with a military chequebook. Instead, a little-known Macau-based company, Agencia Turistica E Diversões Chong Lot Limitada, made an offer. Their stated plan was audacious and, in hindsight, brilliantly deceptive: to buy the 67,500-ton hulk and convert it into the world’s largest floating hotel and casino.
The company was a classic shell, a front created to mask the operation’s true intent. It was managed by former PLA officers and fronted by Hong Kong businessman Xu Zengping, a former PLA basketball player with deep connections to China’s military establishment. Xu secured massive loans from Chinese business associates, astonishingly without any collateral, a clear indicator of the state-level trust and backing behind the mission. The entire operation was a masterstroke of misdirection, skillfully exploiting legal loopholes and a world not yet fully attuned to the scale of China’s ambitions.
A Perilous Voyage to a New Life
Securing the Varyag was only the first chapter. Getting the engineless, rudderless behemoth to China was a saga in itself. The only route from the Black Sea was through the Turkish-controlled Bosphorus Strait, a narrow and treacherous waterway. Citing the immense safety risks—and likely wary of the vessel’s obvious military potential—Turkey initially refused passage.
What followed was a full-court diplomatic press by China. High-level officials descended on Ankara, not with threats, but with a suite of incentives: hundreds of millions in economic aid, lucrative trade deals, and a promise to send millions of Chinese tourists to Turkey. After 16 months of intense negotiations, Turkey’s prime minister personally intervened and gave the green light.
In late 2001, the Varyag began its odyssey. The journey was fraught with peril. A violent storm in the Aegean Sea snapped the towing cables, leaving the giant ship adrift and resulting in the tragic death of a sailor. After this ordeal, Egypt denied the vessel passage through the Suez Canal, forcing the convoy to take the long, arduous route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. Finally, in March 2002, after a journey of over 15,000 kilometres, the battered hull limped into Dalian shipyard, ready for its transformation.
From Rust to Rival: A Technical Resurrection
The ship that arrived was a shadow of a warship. It was only 70% complete and had suffered years of decay. What Chinese engineers accomplished over the next decade was nothing short of remarkable.
They began by sandblasting the hull down to bare metal, repairing years of corrosion, and installing missing sections and internal bulkheads. A completely new island superstructure—the command tower on the flight deck—was designed and built, tailored specifically for Chinese sensors and operational doctrine.
Internally, a major surprise awaited. Contrary to Beijing’s public claims that the vessel was an empty shell, its four original Soviet-designed steam turbines were found to be intact, “perfectly grease-sealed.” Chinese firms like Harbin Boiler Company supplied new high-pressure boilers, which were integrated with the existing machinery. This hybrid powerplant generates a colossal 200,000 shaft horsepower, driving four propellers to push the massive ship through the water at speeds of up to 32 knots (nearly 60 km/h).
The flight deck, the carrier’s entire reason for being, was heavily modified. It was reinforced to withstand the violent impact of repeated jet landings and coated with specialised non-skid surfacing. Crucially, a 14-degree ski-jump ramp was fitted to the bow. This allows its primary fighter, the Shenyang J-15, to take off without a catapult, using the upward curve to gain altitude—a system known as Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery (STOBAR).
For self-defence, the Liaoning was armed to the teeth. Its electronic eyes are the powerful Type 346A “Dragon Eye” AESA radar arrays, mounted on the island, which can track hundreds of aerial and surface targets simultaneously. For a last line of defence against incoming missiles, it relies on three Type 1130 Close-In Weapon Systems (CIWS). Each of these is an 11-barrel Gatling gun capable of spitting out an astonishing 10,000 rounds of 30mm ammunition per minute. This is backed by batteries of HQ-10 short-range air defence missiles, creating a layered defensive shield.
The Strategic Payoff: More Than Just a Ship
When the Liaoning was officially commissioned into the PLAN in 2012, it was more than just a new warship. It was a strategic game-changer.
First, it served as a “floating classroom.” Carrier operations are incredibly complex, a finely tuned choreography of launching, landing, refuelling, and rearming jets on a moving, pitching deck. The Liaoning allowed the PLAN to compress decades of learning into a few short years, creating a core of experienced pilots, deck crews, and command staff.
Second, it gave China a credible blue-water power projection tool for the first time. Its deployments in the South China Sea and beyond fundamentally altered the regional security calculus, challenging the long-standing naval dominance of the United States and forcing neighbours, including India, to reassess their maritime strategies.
Finally, the Liaoning became the foundation for China’s indigenous carrier program. The technical challenges overcome and the operational lessons learned from this refurbished Soviet hull directly informed the design of China’s first home-built carrier, the Shandong, and its newer, more advanced cousin, the CATOBAR-capable Fujian.
Lessons for India and the World
The Liaoning’s story is rich with lessons. Perhaps the most significant is the value of strategic patience. China’s leadership was willing to invest over a decade, absorb significant costs, and navigate immense diplomatic and technical hurdles to see the project through. This long-term vision stands in stark contrast to the often shorter planning horizons that can hamstring defence projects in democracies.
The saga also highlights the power of integrating foreign technology with indigenous innovation. China didn’t just copy the Varyag; it took the 40 tons of technical blueprints that came with the deal, reverse-engineered key components, and upgraded them with its own advanced systems. For India, with its own successful carrier program in INS Vikramaditya and the indigenous INS Vikrant, this model of leveraging foreign platforms to accelerate domestic capability is highly relevant.
Ultimately, the rise of the Liaoning underscores the critical need for robust maritime domain awareness. As Chinese carriers venture further into the Indian Ocean, India’s ability to monitor the seas and maintain a credible deterrent through its own carrier strike groups, submarines, and anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities becomes ever more crucial.
The transformation of the Varyag into the Liaoning was a triumph of strategic vision and national will. It’s a powerful reminder that in the great game of geopolitics, a nation’s ambition, combined with patience and ingenuity, can turn a forgotten relic into a potent symbol of power, forever changing the naval chessboard.
Brijesh Singh is a senior IPS officer and an author (@brijeshbsingh on X). His latest book on ancient India, “The Cloud Chariot” (Penguin) is out on stands. Views are personal.
