<< China's former Soviet aircraft carrier, now called the Liaoning, was commissioned in 2012.
By WENDELL MINNICK
TAIPEI — Experts on China’s Navy are sounding cautionary tones after news surfaced last week that China is reportedly constructing a second aircraft carrier.
The Chinese-language report from Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao, known as a veteran pro-Beijing newspaper, stated that Wang Min, a Communist Party secretary of China’s northeastern province of Liaoning, has confirmed the construction of the ship, which unlike its first carrier, is homegrown.
China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, began life as the unfinished Ukrainian ship Varyag and was abandoned after the Soviet Union collapsed. Varyag was sold in 1998 for $20 million to a Hong Kong developer, ostensibly for refurbishment as a casino in Macao.
Instead of being towed there, it was towed to Dalian shipyard in northeastern China and refurbished. Commissioned in September 2012, the ship conducted flight tests with its first carrier-borne fighter jet, the J-15 Flying Shark.
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