Sebastien Roblin
Security, Asia
By pretending it was going to be turned into a casino.
China was proud to launch its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in 2012. This vessel was a refit of an incomplete Soviet Kuznetsov-class cruiser carrier. However, the story of how China got that ship in the first place may as well be a comedy—because the carrier was actually a rogue acquisition for the Chinese military against the wishes of the government in Beijing. And it was undertaken by a basketball player who claimed he wanted to build a floating casino.
The People’s Liberation Army Navy first became …read more
Source: The National Interest
