China launches first aircraft carrier
Leaders tout move as show of strength
BEIJING China took a step forward Tuesday to becoming a world naval power with the launching of its first aircraft carrier, a refurbished Soviet warship that will serve as a platform for its fighter jets.
The launch of the Liaoning comes as U.S. allies in the region have expressed concern about China’s claims over disputed territory.
The China Defense Ministry said on its website that the carrier’s commissioning boosts the navy’s combat capabilities and its ability to cooperate in responding to natural disasters and “other non-traditional threats.”
“It has important significance in effectively safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development benefits, and advancing world peace and common development,” the ministry said.
President Hu Jintao, also chairman of the commission that controls the military, presided over a ceremony Tuesday at the ship’s home port of Dalian, along with Premier Wen Jiabao and top generals. Wen described the launch as a show of China’s strength.
“The smooth commissioning of the first aircraft carrier has important and profound meaning for modernizing our navy and for enhancing national defensive power and the country’s overall strength,” the staterun Xinhua News Agency quoted Wen as saying.
The United States has played down the importance of the refurbished Soviet ship because of its “limited” capability to carry a full complement of warplanes. But the carrier is to be the first of other roving platforms from which China will base hundreds of new fighter jets.
Pentagon spokesman George Little said the U.S. military was monitoring China’s military expansion and said of the launch, “This wasn’t a particular surprise.”
The U.S. Navy has 11 carriers.
The launch comes as China has pressed its territorial claims to more than 1 million resource-rich square miles of the East China Seas against Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Japan and the Philippines have asked the U.S. to confront China on the matter. The White House has said the claims should be settled through negotiation.
Writing in Tuesday’s China Daily, retired rear admiral Yang Yi said the carrier will be used to master technology for more advanced carriers and to provide training in how to operate such a craft in a battle group and with vessels from other nation’s navies.