LONDON, April 1 (UPI) -- China is years away from realizing ambitions to build an aircraft carrier force and is instead rehabbing an old Russian carrier, British naval experts say.
The London publication Jane's Navy International Wednesday quoted U.S. officials as saying China is unlikely to build any aircraft carriers before 2015, but added that Beijing is continuing a time-consuming project to retrofit the former Russian carrier Varyag.
"It is likely that the ship will emerge from Dalian in the next few years to perform, initially, a training role," said Commodore Stephen Saunders, editor of Jane's Fighting Ships. "It has always been difficult to gauge progress in this project, given the lack of information about the original material state of the ship, but there seems little doubt that refit work is proving to be more technically demanding and time-consuming than originally intended."
Saunders said it was thus reasonable to assume that plans for any Chinese-made carriers have also been delayed.
"As yet there are no firm indications of building at any of the major dockyards and it is quite possible that the initiation of such a prestigious project would be publicized at the time."
