By Joyce Zhou and Jessie Pang
HONG KONG (Reuters) -China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier, the Shandong, sailed into Hong Kong waters on Thursday in its first visit to the Asian financial hub, accompanied by three People’s Liberation Army vessels including missile destroyers.
The five-day visit, coming soon after Hong Kong marked the 28th anniversary of its return from British to Chinese rule, is one of the biggest shows of Chinese military force in Hong Kong in recent years.
China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was rebuilt from a decommissioned Soviet naval vessel and visited Hong Kong in 2017.
Last month, both these Chinese ships had conducted the first known dual aircraft carrier operation in the Pacific, in what senior Taiwanese and Japanese officials said signified China’s expansionist aims beyond its borders.
Stretching 315 meters in length and weighing up to 70,000 tonnes, the Shandong passed through Hong Kong waters before anchoring on the western edge of Victoria Harbour with J-15 fighter jets and Z-18 helicopters on its flight deck.
The Chinese missile destroyer Zhanjiang and the missile frigate Yuncheng docked at a PLA naval base on Stonecutter’s Island, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The tradition of Hong Kong hosting some of the world’s most advanced warships extends back to the decades before 1997, when the city returned to Chinese rule. It was once one of the most popular destinations in Asia for U.S. Navy port visits.
After 1997, China still allowed some U.S. Navy ships to visit, including aircraft carriers like the USS Kitty Hawk in 2008, USS Nimitz in 2010, and USS Ronald Reagan in 2018, but as geopolitical tensions grew, these U.S. port visits became rarer and were eventually blocked altogether by Beijing.
Hong Kong leader John Lee welcomed the Chinese strike group, noting that thousands of public tickets to visit the flotilla had been snapped up.
Lee said the public could “gain a deeper understanding of the achievements in (China’s) national defense modernisation.”
Some spectators gathered along the shoreline with binoculars and zoom lenses to catch a distant glimpse of the ships.
“To see this kind of development, where within 20 to 40 years it has progressed to the current level, is very impressive,” said Richard Yip, who travelled from his hometown of Dongguan in southern China’s Guangdong province.
“Not every country can achieve this.”
(Reporting by Joyce Zhou and Jessie Pang; Editing by James Pomfret and Saad Sayeed)
