China is bent on the simultaneous development of both an aircraft carrier and a strategic nuclear submarine, or SSBN. Discussions over which should take priority are over, as a higher military budget allocation has speeded up the People's Liberation Army Navy's ambitious plans. China has been working more than 20 years on building a carrier, according to a memoir written by Liu Huaqin, former commander-in-chief of the navy. He said the navy had had a special budget for research on carrier technology since the 1980s.
China purchased the abandoned Soviet carrier Varyag from Ukraine in 2000, with the excuse that it intended to turn it into a casino. However, sources in the Ukraine military industry have confirmed in a number of interviews since 2001 that the people who came from China to negotiate the deal were not casino experts. All of them were very familiar with navy technology, however.
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