An admiral and an aircraft carrier

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has come to China and in the Telegraph this morning, Malcom Moore writes about the debate over China’s military capabilities.

It has been a month to remember for the top brass of China’s People’s Liberation Army. While other armies fret about their funding, China’s generals have unveiled three major new weapons that could challenge the military supremacy of the United States and provide the firepower to underline China’s superpower status.

Stealth fighters that may or may not be all that stealthy with pilots of dubious quality, a killer land-sea anti-carrier missile that may or  may not be flying blind, gauging the state of the Chinese military these days seems more Ouija Board than Jane’s Defense Weekly, but one asset which has been fairly well documented is the former Soviet wannabe aircraft carrier Varyag, purchased several years ago for the low low price of $20 million and towed to China after a close out sale by the Ukrainian navy.

(Hmmm, which would I rather have: a luxury apartment in Beijing or an aircraft carrier…?)

The carrier now is in Dalian and, if rumors swirling since at least last year are correct, has been dubbed the “Shi Lang.”

It’s something of an odd name for China’s first aircraft carrier.  Sure, it was the admiral Shi Lang who took Taiwan, marking the first point in Chinese history that the restive and wild island was ruled from a government based in Beijing so…yeah, there’s some symbolism there.  But at the same time, the Taiwan-based regime he defeated was founded by Zheng Chenggong, who gets the credit in Chinese history textbooks for ‘recovering’ Taiwan from the clutches of the Dutch but who really was forced to the island after failing to hold the line on the mainland against Manchus.  Shi Lang, for the record, was a turncoat who at one time sided with the Zheng family against the Manchu invaders but — for reasons that will be clear in a moment — switched sides, ultimately proving to be one of the Qing Empire’s most valuable early military commanders.

Shi Lang was the scion of a distinguished Fujian lineage whose life and military career were defined by the Manchu conquest of the Ming Empire and the subsequent expansion and consolidation of Qing rule.  A commander in the forces of Ming Loyalist Zheng Zhilong who sought to defend Fujian from the Manchu invaders, he soon incurred the jealousy of Zheng’s son, Zheng Chenggong, better known in the West as Koxinga.  Then things started going seriously sideways. The father, Zheng Zhilong, reading the tea leaves so to speak, threw his lot in with the Manchus and the son, Zheng Chenggong broke with the family, continuing to resist the Qing while throwing his support behind various claimants to the vacated Ming throne.  Caught in the middle of this family squabble, Zheng Chenggong threw Shi Lang in the brig and executed Shi Lang’s father, brother, son, and nephew.

Eventually escaping from captivity, Shi Lang — now decidedly less disposed to helping Zheng Cheng’gong in his battles with the Manchus — went over to the Manchus, who found Shi Lang’s familiarity with naval warfare very useful in their continuing campaigns against Ming loyalist forces along China’s southern coast.  When Zheng Cheng’gong fled to Taiwan in 1661, Shi Lang proposed several plans to take the island and finish his arch-enemy once and for all.  Sadly, he never got that chance.  Zheng Cheng’gong died soon after fleeing across the Taiwan Straits, but his family continued to rule Taiwan until 1683 when Shi Lang and a force of 300 warships and 20,000 troops successfully compelled the Zheng family to surrender.

Shi Lang stayed in the south, organizing the administrative annexation of Taiwan as a prefecture of Fujian.  When my students ask “When did ‘Taiwan’ become part of ‘China’” (and I don’t feel like getting into the whole Qing Empire vs. China debate) I’ll tell them 1683 is as good a date as any.

I suppose the most obvious choice — given that carriers first and foremost are used to project a nation’s naval and military power beyond its usual sphere of influence — would be to name the thing after Zheng He.  Now I recall that there is (was?) another PLAN ship named after the famous 15th century admiral and explorer, but I suspect there are other reasons why Navy officials decided that Zheng He wouldn’t work here.

First, contemporary historical discourse in the PRC likes to emphasize Zheng He’s ‘peaceful’ intentions, and while it’s true that he wasn’t interested in the kind of armed land grabs which characterized European exploration, when you show up in a port with 270 ships — including several behemoths — and 27,000 men under arms…well, you do make kind of a point.

Second, given that Zheng He’s voyages took him to Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and Africa — places where China’s international presence is a matter of some delicacy at the moment, perhaps it’s best not to make unnecessarily provocative historical allusions…unless of course you’re referring to the crushing of a renegade regime on the island of Taiwan.

Finally, maybe the whole ‘eunuch’ thing still rankles.  I tend to assume that most military decisions in China are equal parts ‘geo-political strategic assessment’ and ‘Freudian overcompensation’ so…

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Sources and Readings:

Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China, 2nd Edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999)

Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, Arthur W. Hummel, ed. (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1944)

From the archives

• February 1, 2008 -- The Historical Record for February 1, 2008: Koxinga and the liberation of Taiwan
• July 16, 2008 -- The Historical Record for July 16, 2008: The Battle of Penghu
• July 7, 2010 -- NYT: Protecting China’s treasures from the ravages of war