China has celebrated its second aircraft carrier which is known to a homemade one built within less than four years.
The carrier will be joining Liaoning to protect waters around the territory wherein claims and counter-claims have been made.
"It allows China to project power far off-shore, and protect its expanding overseas interests," NPR's Anthony Kuhn says. "The U.S., meanwhile, has 10 carriers, and it's been building an operating them for the better part of a century."
"The valuable lessons learned from building a carrier from scratch will help China build more carriers faster in the future and enable them to reach combat readiness quicker," Zhu Chenghu, a professor at China's National Defense University said.
The newest carrier is still not operational but the main components and power supply are already installed.
