China is building a ‘bigger and mightier’ aircraft carrier
BEIJING: China has for the first time officially acknowledged it is building a third aircraft carrier that is expected to be “bigger and mightier” than the first domestically-built one, state media reported on Monday.
The aircraft carrier is part of China’s heavily guarded “new generation carrier” programme, which aims at indigenously building the ships.
“China has launched work on building its third aircraft carrier,” the official news agency Xinhua said in an article published on the mobile social media app, Wechat.
Quoting from the Wechat update, state-controlled China Daily newspaper said, “…as the nation’s second, and the first domestically designed, carrier has undergone sea trials, a “newgeneration carrier is being constructed at the shipyard as per schedule”.
The newspaper article added that the Xinhua update on the third carrier was “…intended to mark the sixth anniversary of the first takeoff and landing by a Chinese fighter on the country’s first carrier CNS Liaoning”.
It did not elaborate on the programme of the “new-generation carrier”, which is believed to be the country’s third carrier.
“But the article is the first official confirmation,” the China Daily report said.
Earlier this year, the Russian news agency Sputnik had this to say about China’s second domestically built carrier: “The Type 002, China’s second generation aircraft carrier design, is broadly expected to have an electromagnetic launch catapult similar to the kind used by the US and France.
“The construction of the ship, which reportedly began sometime between 2015 and 2016, is expected to be completed by 2020, with the Navy expecting to commission the carrier by2023.”
The People’s Liberation Army has made rapid strides in building a world class navy with a reach way beyond its shores.