Two years after his retirement, Song Xue, a key figure in the Liaoning, the Navy’s deputy chief of staff, was terminated as a deputy to the National People’s Congress on April 8 and was again held criminally responsible. We interviewed Yao Cheng, who was a close friend of Song Xue’s back in the day.
The Chinese Navy’s Liaoning aircraft carrier fleet, which recently encountered a U.S. destroyer penetrating at sea, has raised questions about the combat effectiveness of China’s aircraft carriers. According to several media reports, the fact that the Liaoning was besieged by U.S. and Japanese warships indicates that there are serious questions about the operational capability of the carrier, which was purchased from Ukraine, and the authorities are pursuing those responsible, one of whom is Song Xue, the former deputy chief of staff of the Navy.
Yao Cheng, a former lieutenant colonel on the Chinese naval command staff now living in the United States, had a relationship with Song Xue at the naval command. He believes it was expected that Song would be held accountable. Speaking to Radio Free Asia on Monday (May 3), Yao said it was clear that the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China was not satisfied with the Liaoning’s performance.
“It took so much money and so long to build two aircraft carriers that cannot fight. The main thing is that when the Liaoning carrier formation sailed from the north to the south, it was washed up by American and Japanese warships, which made it lose face in the international arena. Then there is Xi Jinping’s ongoing dissatisfaction with naval equipment.”
The Twitter account “OSINT-1” posted satellite images on April 26 that showed the Liaoning sailing in the East China Sea surrounded by not only U.S. and Japanese warships, but also a U.S. destroyer interspersed with the Liaoning’s main group of ships. Military experts were almost unanimous in their opinion that the incident was unusual.
Some military experts even described the U.S. warships as “a disgrace” because they were in no man’s land and the Chinese ships were completely helpless to protect the aircraft carrier.
The Chinese military also acknowledged the fact that the U.S. destroyer kept observing the Chinese fleet at close range during the Liaoning formation’s “normal training activities,” which “seriously interfered with the Chinese side’s training activities and seriously threatened the safety of navigation and personnel on both sides. The nature is very bad”.
The Liaoning has a congenital defect in its construction
The official website of the Chinese National People’s Congress released on April 29 that Song Xue, a former deputy chief of staff of the Navy and a representative of the 13th National People’s Congress elected by the People’s Liberation Army, was removed from his position as a representative of the National People’s Congress on April 8 after the Navy held a military congress on suspicion of serious disciplinary violations. In accordance with the relevant provisions of the National People’s Congress, Song Xue’s representative qualification is terminated.
Yao Cheng said that the former vice commander of the Navy, He Pengfei, led the purchase of the Varyag aircraft carrier from Ukraine and then spent huge amounts of money to convert it into the Liaoning. After He Pengfei’s death in March 2001, his secretary, Song Xue, was promoted and during that time was in charge of the Liaoning’s conversion project, as well as flight training for the Liaoning’s carrier aircraft. He said.
“There were many people in the Navy who disagreed with the purchase of this carrier at the time. The Varyag carrier carrier slide-in takeoff is an obsolete type. The U.S. carriers are under construction electronic ejection system, you slip takeoff can not fight the war, the facts prove that the Chinese Navy’s decision was wrong”
According to Beijing Youth Daily’s WeChat public number “Political Knowledge”, the above news disclosed two layers of meaning: first, Song Xue is no longer the deputy chief of staff of the Navy, and second, Song Xue is suspected of serious disciplinary violations.
Yao Cheng said he had a good relationship with Song Xue during his service in the Chinese naval command, working together for a long time in the 933 (code name) office of the New Equipment Office.
Liaoning flight training had caused many casualties
Song Xue has made several public appearances to explain to the public the construction and development of the Communist aircraft carriers. This includes the fact that Chinese aircraft carrier formations will become an independent army and fall directly under the command of the Chinese Navy.
Yao Cheng said that for a long period of time, Song was responsible for the refitting of the Liaoning and the training of its carrier pilots, and that flight training caused many casualties.
“After He Pengfei arrived in the Navy, he was transferred from the General Staff Equipment Department. He was not in the Navy before. In fact, it was (the Central Military Commission) was dissatisfied with the navy’s equipment and took Song Xue to open the door. You say corruption, which one of the officials of the Navy corrupt, the equipment department is corrupt. If he leaks state secrets, he will first find me, it is impossible to find others, he trusts me too much. We deal mainly with the working relationship. He is okay, Shandong people, quite loyal.”
Public information shows that Song, a 63-year-old student from Shandong province in July 1958, was promoted to rear admiral in July 2010; he served as vice minister of the Navy’s equipment department before becoming deputy chief of naval staff. Yao Cheng said the authorities could not find another suitable candidate to hold the Liaoning aircraft carrier accountable.
“He was involved in the Liaoning from beginning to end, including flight training and induction, and he was involved in all of them.”
In 2012, Xinhua published an article “Media first disclosed the details of the whole process of J15 landing on Liaoning aircraft carrier”, which mentioned that Song Xue was interviewed as “deputy commander-in-chief of J15 carrier aircraft takeoff and landing test task”. A year later, Song Xue introduced the situation of China’s aircraft carrier construction to the public.
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