China Begins Building Second Aircraft Carrier

Announcement comes as maritime tensions simmer on China’s periphery

Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning cruises for a test on the sea in May 2012. PHOTO: LI TANG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By CHUN HAN WONG- Dec. 31, 2015

BEIJING—China said it has started building a second aircraft carrier, signaling Beijing’s ambitions to develop a powerful navy as it asserts itself regionally.

Thursday’s announcement—confirming speculation among defense watchers—comes amid festering maritime tensions on China’s periphery, marked by what Beijing’s neighbors call aggressive Chinese moves to assert control over disputed Asian waters.

Still, analysts say the new warship will provide only a modest boost to China’s rudimentary carrier force, which remains decades away from challenging the U.S. as the dominant naval power in the Asia Pacific.

“Independent design and construction work [on the second carrier] is under way” in the northeastern city of Dalian, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman told a regular news briefing, according to an official transcript. The 50,000-ton vessel is a fully indigenous design that will be conventionally powered, he said, unlike the nuclear-powered U.S. carriers.

The new carrier will carry Chinese-built J-15 jet fighters and other aircraft, many of which would use what is known as a ski-jump ramp for takeoff, according to Sr. Col. Yang Yujun. He said the warship will be more technologically capable than China’s existing carrier, the Liaoning, which was built from a Soviet-era hull bought from Ukraine in 1998.

Sr. Col. Yang declined to specify a launch date for the new carrier, which would be roughly the same size as the Liaoning.

Analysts say the new carrier underscores China’s efforts to develop a modern military that can safeguard its growing overseas interests. In May, Beijing unveiled plans for its navy to expand operations from offshore areas to the open seas, setting it up for a front-line role in President Xi Jinping’s increasingly assertive foreign policy.

“It’s a statement of intent,” said Huang Jing, an expert on Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore. “Aircraft carriers are useful as deterrent and platforms for projecting power against China’s regional rivals, though not against the mightier U.S. Navy.”

In Washington, Cmdr. Bill Urban, a Pentagon spokesman, said “we are not going to comment on an individual PRC modernization program, but we do monitor Chinese military modernization carefully.”

Beijing has steadily strengthened its fleet in recent years, adding modern destroyers and nuclear submarines that boost its ability to assert claims in the South and East China seas. The effort has worried rival claimants in those waters—including the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan—which have responded with their own naval modernization plans.

Even so, observers say the Chinese navy remains a force in transition—capable of more than mere coastal defense but still a far cry from being a true blue-water force like the U.S. Navy.

China’s first carrier, the Liaoning, entered service in 2012 and serves mainly as a training ship. State media reports say that the carrier has accumulated significant experience in operating fighter jets and has achieved a degree of combat readiness.

“China has joined this elite group of naval powers with aircraft carriers, but at the bottom rung of the ladder,” said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy. “There will be an awful lot of problems with a newly developed carrier, and the Chinese will have to catch up on decades of naval-aviation experience that the U.S. has accumulated.”

China’s new carrier will be far smaller and less capable than its U.S. counterparts. The Chinese ship’s reliance on conventional propulsion means it will have shorter range, while the use of a ski-jump ramp limits the weapons payloads that its aircraft can carry, according to Mr. Thayer.

In contrast, a typical nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carrier displaces more than 100,000 tons, carries more than 80 combat and support aircraft, and can cruise nonstop for months at sea with proper logistics support. The U.S. Navy operates 10 Nimitz aircraft carriers, while a more advanced Gerald R. Ford-class carrier is set to enter service in 2016.

Beijing hasn’t said how many aircraft carriers it wants, though a Chinese admiral told Hong Kong media this year that the People’s Liberation Army Navy would need a minimum of three carriers to ensure at least one was operationally ready at all times. Experts say China will take years, even decades, to develop a carrier force capable of rivaling the U.S.

“China hopes to gradually break the American monopoly on influencing global security issues,” said Mr. Huang, the Singapore-based academic. “It’s a ‘long march’ and China is taking the first steps.”

Thursday’s announcement also lends weight to Beijing’s plan for sweeping military reforms, which would involve streamlining the PLA’s command structure and shedding 300,000 personnel from China’s 2.3 million-strong armed forces.

The effort has met resistance from within the military, and news of a new carrier could boost morale and win support Mr. Xi’s reform agenda, said Mr. Huang.

Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com