Your timeline makes sense but I disagree with your numbers. I think by early 2030s PLAN will have 5-6 carriers. 4/5 conventional and 1 CVN. I think unless something catastrophic happens to the Chinese economy, 2020s naval expansion will be EVEN more aggressive than the 2010s.
Very apt observation. With all the impressive growth and naval modernization in the last decade, PLAN really started from a very low base and still has a long way to go. If we just focus on carriers, the first carrier is not even fully operational now. The first indigenous carrier (really an improved Kunetsov clone) is not yet launched. We've only seen pictures of the steam catapult, the presumed EMALS, and the catapult J-15 demonstrator. We have not got any definite information of the nuclear reactor that will power the future generations of the carriers.
In other words, what we're seeing is the beginning of the journey, although we've some glimpse of what future might look like. From 2020 to early 2030, we will see explosive growth in capabilities, sort of the fruits of development efforts in this decade. After that, the growth will become more linear and incremental, in all likelihood.
I don't think the PLAN needs any carriers period, but we've gone through that before. For all we know about the political leadership "forcing" a second Liaoning on the PLAN "to play it safe" could indicate that the political leadership wants the carrier program's belt tightened and/or de-prioritized while throwing it a bone. This would also mean no 3rd Liaoning type carrier or even no 3rd carrier of any type at all for some time.
Are you seriously out of your mind? I'm all for "out-of-box" or independent thinking and all that, but this? I don't even know where to start to refute these assertions. Let's start with some big pictures.
China is the world's second largest economy, and will very likely become the largest in the next decade. China is currently the world's largest trading nation. For many years, China has been world's largest or second largest destinations of foreign investment. Since last year, China's outbound investments has surpassed inbound investments and are set to grow rapidly in the future years. Chinese nationals are everywhere globally; since 2014, China has become the largest tourist originating country in the world. In other words, China's interests are global and it needs a blue-water navy to safeguard and support those interests, and the growing economy pays for it. The central pieces of that blue-water navy are carriers. Not just any carriers, but nuclear-powered super-carriers, eventually.
And those are not just PLAN's dreams and wishes. They're also part of the Chinese leadership's announced national maritime objective, with broad support from Chinese society. In November 2012, then president Hu Jintao declared that China’s objective was to become a strong or great maritime power. Xi Jinping further reinforced the objective. Here are a couple of background readings in case you're interested:
, Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, USN (retired)
, Dr. Thomas J. Bickford, China Studies Division of CNA
The circumstance of China's blue-navy ambition and objective are quite different from those of Imperial Germany or Soviet Union. They are the natural results of growing national power, and are justified by the trade, investment, maritime and national security. Furthermore, China's geography is much more favorable than Germany and ex-Soviet Union for developing a global blue-water navy (See
by Robert D. Kaplan for some discussion). It's therefore a more sustainable national strategy. PLAN pays close attention to the USN and tries to emulate them as much as possible (really the only model PLAN wants to emulate).