Currently, the PLA Navy operates a sole aircraft carrier, CNS Liaoning, which was originally a Soviet-era vessel and received an extensive refit at the same shipyard in Dalian, where the new carrier is being constructed, before going into service in September 2012.
China's first domestically built aircraft carrier on Sunday at the Dalian port in northeastern China. The carrier is expected to carry 24 Shenyang J-15 combat jets, and 12 anti-submarine warfare helicopters. The launch "shows our country's indigenous aircraft carrier design and construction has achieved major step-by-step results", Xinhua news agency said.
China has a long way to go, however, to match the world's largest naval force, the US Navy, which now operates 10 aircraft carriers as well as dozens of destroyers and submarines.
The Chinese government claimed that the new carrier was entirely home built although there were reports that it may be based on the design of the first one, which was bought from Russian Federation.
BEIJING (AP) - China launched its first aircraft carrier built entirely on its own on Wednesday, in a demonstration of the growing technical sophistication of its defense industries and determination to safeguard its maritime territorial claims and crucial trade routes.
The Type 003 class aircraft carriers will likely adopt the electromagnetic aircraft launch system.
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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. This year, however, Liaoning has been involved in conducting take-off and landing drills in the controversial South China Sea.
"The country would have finished work on it several years ago if Beijing had simply wanted to engage in an arms race to have more influence in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions", the article said in defence of China deploying its first aircraft carrier in 1912.
China first announced the construction of its new carrier in late December 2015.
Among them, only India has an aircraft carrier, one a little smaller than the Liaoning.
Giving a comparison of the American supercarrier and the new Chinese carrier, Li said the former is powered by two advanced nuclear reactors and equipped with an electromagnetic aircraft launching system while the conventional-powered Shandong retains the ski-jump take-off ramp of the Liaoning. State media said it would be "independently designed in China".
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