What’s in a name? A history lesson in the case of China’s new aircraft carrier the Shandong
- Warship is named after the province where it will be based, but it also carries a message aimed at reminding the PLA Navy to learn from past humiliations
- It was commissioned on the anniversary of the Beiyang Fleet, which was wiped out by the Japanese navy in 1895
But there is more to its name than just the province where it will be based.
Like the Liaoning – a Soviet-era warship that was the first in the fleet and retrofitted in the province it is named after – the new warship’s name is loaded with significance.
Underlying both is a sentimental message aimed at reminding the PLA Navy to learn from past humiliations, according to military analysts and an insider.
They say such names – and the timing of when they are announced – reflect the ruling Communist Party’s attempts to strengthen patriotism and “political education” among both the military and ordinary Chinese.
It all started with a Japanese vessel that was transferred to China in 1945 after Japan’s surrender in World War II, according to the official PLA Daily. The vessel went on to become the PLA Navy’s first warship in 1955 and was renamed the Nanchang, for the Jiangxi capital where the party launched its first armed uprising in 1927. And the precedent was set.