Homeless Carrier Seen Sleeping Under Bridges, Writing Poetry About the Sea
By HAI SHANG SHILI
South China Seas Correspondent
SOUTH CHINA SEA — China’s newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, has been spotted drifting from port to port this week, forlornly circling the South China Sea in search of someone willing to take it in.
Witnesses describe the massive 316-meter vessel, displacing 80,000 tonnes, shuffling sadly up to naval bases before being turned away at the pier. “It sort of nudged against the seawall, gave a hopeful little honk of its foghorn, and then just drifted off when no one answered,” said one fisherman near Hainan. “Everybody feels bad for it, but we all know it belongs to the PLAN. They’re always building ships and then kicking them out once they get bored.”
Naval experts warn the carrier’s plight is real. “Chinese ports are already brimming with half-finished hulls, supply ships, and submarines waiting for dry-dock,” explained Zhou Lianhai, Senior Strategist for the South China Sea Observatory. “Nobody wants to take on the responsibility for housing a supercarrier right now.”
According to reports, the Fujian first returned to its birthplace at Changxing Island in Shanghai, but the yard was “too busy making newer and better ships” to take it back. It then waddled up to Qingdao’s Yuchi base, only to be told that Liaoning still hogs the good berth. At Sanya’s Yulin base in Hainan, home of the Shandong, guards reportedly left a dish of aviation fuel outside the gate before gently shooing it away. “I’ll get in trouble if my commanding officer sees it here tomorrow,” Second Lieutenant Chen Haoran said anxiously, admitting he had already been given orders to sink the vessel if it tried coming back. “I almost feel like my shipmates and I could take care of it on the side, but just imagine there isn’t a fogbank to hide it every night. What happens when the admiral wakes up and sees it there one morning just begging for a deck resurfacing?”
With winter approaching and no pier to call its own, the ship has resorted to curling up in open anchorages, emitting low, mournful sonar pings at night. A Chinese Coast Guard patrol reported seeing it trying to make friends with the lighthouse off the coast of Dengloujiao Lighthouse near Guangdong’s Leizhou Peninsula, but according to records the lighthouse had been decommissioned years ago.
At press time, the Fujian was last seen trailing a Vietnamese fishing fleet, hoping one of the smaller vessels would agree to let it tag along, and maybe teach it how to fire a few ICBMs.
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