Introduction: For the last 14 years I have produced an annual review of the buildup and modernization of the Chinese Navy, the People's Liberation Army Navy, or "PLAN" as it is called. At the time these reviewws started, the PLAN was just embarking on producing more mordern vessels, and had acquired a carrier, the old Soviet Varyag, which was the second in their Kuznetsov class, but which was sitting unfinished in Ukraine due to the fall of the Soviet Union.