Launched the first aircraft carrier from China

The new carrier is slightly larger than the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier, constructed by the Soviet Union as a Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier and refitted by the Chinese.

“With each new aircraft carrier, China is sending a signal that it has no peer among its neighbors”, the New York Times quoted Patrick M. Cronin, the senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, as saying.

Construction of the 70,000 ton Chinese warship, which sailed out of its dry dock today, started in November 2013.

The carrier, which will likely be called the Shandong but is now designated as CV-001A, is expected to be operational by 2020.

Putting the carrier into water marks progress in China’s efforts to design and build a domestic aircraft carrier.

On a more serious note, China’s second aircraft carrier is ready to be launched when the tides are right in Dalian-in Northeast China not far from the Korean peninsula.

A blue-water navy is a maritime force capable of operating globally across the deep waters of open oceans.

“It is highly unlikely to pose a threat to the United States if you look at how advanced American aircraft carriers are”, Char said. North Korea has been provoking the United States and its neighbours like South Korea and Japan by conducting nuclear and missile tests.

The unveiling ceremony was presided over by the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Fan Changlong.

In March, it announced it would increase its military budget by about 7% this year – the second year in a row that increases have been less than 10%, after almost 20 years of larger increases.

The SCMP recalls Japan’s anger when the Liaoning first ventured into the western Pacific a year ago; the Associated Press notes that Japan, India, and Taiwan have grown interested in building the kind of submarine that excels at sinking aircraft carriers. But unlike the nuclear-powered US carriers, both the new carrier and the Liaoning have ski-jump bows that borrow from the Soviet design. The launch comes amid China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea. The Liaoning was initially touted mainly as an experimental and training platform, but in December was declared to be combat-ready and has taken part in live-firing exercises in the South China Sea, where tensions have risen over China’s construction of man-made islands complete with airstrips and military structures. China has urged calm.

Chinese government experts have said that a third carrier will be built soon, and it would probably be nuclear armed.

In recent months, Beijing has been irked by U.S. naval patrols near islands that China claims in the South China Sea.

James Char, a China military analyst at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the new vessel would serve as more of a “status symbol” for China in the East and South China seas.