Two Chinese companies - Hainan Offshore Industry and the State Corporation Jidong Development - have launched a project to create a floating fortresses - platform length to 3.2 km, where you can place objects, both military and commercial applications, writes Financial Times.
They already have a semi-official name - "super-large floating structures" (very large floating structures, VLFS).
On the one hand, these platforms can be used as runways, docks, helipads, barracks, military bases, on the other - under the oil or gas, shopping malls and duty-free exotic resorts. The companies focus on peaceful uses, but does not hide the fact that once their child may become the basis of the new Navy of China.
While these giant structures exist only in the virtual world - in the form of computer graphics, presentations and dioramas. They formed the basis of the technology that major oil companies use to drill on the high seas.
"As long as we are at the stage of design and research," - said the chairman of the board of directors Hainan Offshore Feng Jun.
Jidong Development Company confirmed that it will finance the research and development work on VFLS at 3.7 billion yuan (about $ 600 million).
According to analysts, this project successfully completes the construction of Beijing's artificial islands in the South China Sea. The Chinese military has shown increased interest to him, notes the FT, while the representative of China's Ministry of Defence earlier this week said that he was unaware of plans to purchase or operation of such structures.