Michael Richardson: Full steam ahead to master the seas

China is intent on becoming a fully fledged maritime power with a big commercial shipping fleet, a well-equipped long-range Navy and a shipbuilding industry that can make both advanced merchant vessels and warships.

What are the implications for other Asian and Pacific nations and the United States?

Chinese state-controlled shipping companies are among the fastest-growing in the world, especially in container vessels to carry China's exports and tankers to bring in oil. China now accounts for more than 25 per cent of the world's cargo container exports, goods that in China's case go mainly to the US and Europe.

China imports about 50 per cent of the oil it consumes and wants to carry as much as possible of this vital supply of energy in its own tanker fleet.

Many of the tankers, container vessels and other new ships ordered by China are being built locally. In a little over a decade, China has moved from a point where it had a minor share of world shipbuilding to become the third-largest maker behind Japan and South Korea.

Chinese officials say ship production has increased an average 26 per cent annually over the past five years. They expect their industry to have a 25 per cent share of the global market by 2010, up from 14 per cent last year. According to London-based Clarkson, the world's biggest ship-broker, Chinese yards actually won 17 per cent of all new orders by deadweight tonnage last year, with Japan capturing 35 per cent and South Korea 34 per cent.

China can now design and build giant vessels such as 300,000-tonne oil tankers, liquefied natural gas carriers, and liners that can each carry more than 8000 cargo containers. Chinese officials say that just 10 per cent of vessels built in China are for military use.

But Beijing's decision to expand and upgrade the shipbuilding industry is linked to its plans to modernise the armed forces and develop a Navy that can protect China's interests, trade and supply lines, including its increasing imports of energy and raw materials. China's commercial shipbuilding is often co-located with military shipyards.

The media in Hong Kong and on the mainland recently reported that China has started to build its first aircraft carrier in Shanghai or will soon do so. Zhang Guangqin, a vice-minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, denied that construction had begun but said that related Government agencies were considering whether to do so.

"Protecting maritime security, sovereignty and rights is the sacred mission of our Navy," he said.

The American Shipbuilding Association claims that if China continues to expand its Navy by adding an average of 12 major surface warships and submarines annually, as it has being doing for the past few years, the Chinese submarine fleet will double the size of America's by 2010, while the overall number of vessels in the Chinese Navy will surpass that of the US in 2015.

Some of the most advanced of these ships and submarines are being imported, mainly from Russia. And the association's forecast does not address the all-important issue of the relative power and capabilities of the Chinese and US Navies, now and in the future. For example, the US Navy has 13 aircraft carriers, twice the number of such warships operated by other countries, including France and India.