{"id":199467,"date":"2019-12-19T07:33:19","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T07:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=199467"},"modified":"2019-12-21T06:34:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T06:34:40","slug":"chinas-second-aircraft-carrier-shandong-enters-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=199467","title":{"rendered":"China&#8217;s second aircraft carrier &#8216;Shandong&#8217; enters service"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>The 50,000-tonne warship is China&#8217;s first domestically built aircraft carrier\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>It was\u00a0commissioned by President Xi to the People&#8217;s Liberation Army today\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>The vessel will be based in Sanya, Hainan Province,\u00a0in the South China Sea<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>It will add major firepower to Beijing&#8217;s military might amid regional conflicts<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Billie Thompson \u2013 for Mail Online and AFP Dec 17, 2019<\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">China\u2019 second aircraft carrier entered service today, adding major firepower to the country&#8217;s military ambitions as it faces tensions with self-ruled Taiwan as well as the US and regional neighbours around the disputed South China Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The 50,000-tonne warship, China&#8217;s first\u00a0domestically built carrier, was commissioned by Chinese President Xi during a ceremony at a naval port in Sanya, southern China&#8217;s Hainan Province, state media said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The commissioning of the ship, which has been named after the eastern coastal province of Shandong, puts China in a small club of nations with multiple aircraft carriers.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_199468\" style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Chinas-second-aircraft-carrier-the-50000-Shangdon-has-just-entered-serive.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-199468\" class=\"wp-image-199468\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Chinas-second-aircraft-carrier-the-50000-Shangdon-has-just-entered-serive.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"331\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Chinas-second-aircraft-carrier-the-50000-Shangdon-has-just-entered-serive.jpg 634w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Chinas-second-aircraft-carrier-the-50000-Shangdon-has-just-entered-serive-300x184.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-199468\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">China&#8217;s second aircraft carrier the 50,000 Shangdon has just entered service. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Beijing&#8217;s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is a re-fitted Soviet-era Ukrainian ship and named after the province where it was revamped. It entered service in September, 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The country is building a third aircraft carrier, which will be equipped with a flat-top flight deck and an electromagnetic aircraft launch system, according to previous reports.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The new aircraft carrier was delivered to the People&#8217;s Liberation Army Navy in Hainan, China&#8217;s southernmost province, and placed in active service on Tuesday, reported <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.xinhuanet.com\/english\/2019-12\/17\/c_138638048.htm\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Xinhua News Agency<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">State broadcaster CCTV shows President Xi boarding the vessel to be saluted by its captain, Lai Yijun, before inspecting the naval troops stationed on the ship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">President Xi also went into one warplane being parked on the carrier<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Hainan province is in the South China Sea east of Vietnam, which has competing claims in the waterway along with China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In November China confirmed that the ship had sailed through the Taiwan Strait for &#8216;routine&#8217; training and tests, drawing the ire of Taipei.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It is believed that the ship will be based in a newly complete aircraft carrier base in Sanya.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The facility has been described as &#8216;a large military base built by the Chinese navy&#8217; and can hold &#8216;various large vessels&#8217;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Commenting on the construction of the base, Geng Yansheng, the country&#8217;s then spokesperson for the\u00a0Ministry of National Defense, previous said that it was &#8216;very necessary and normal&#8217; for the Chinese troops to &#8216;maintain and revamp&#8217; its facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">China, which sees democratic Taiwan as part of its territory, has stepped up military drills around the island since Beijing-sceptic President Tsai Ing-wen, who is seeking re-election, came to power in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The new warship has been named The Shandong because the province has the country&#8217;s first aircraft carrier base, military analyst Lijie told state-run newspaper Global Times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It is based on the Soviet Kuznetsov class design and was launched at a shipyard in the northern port city of Dalian on April 27, 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It can hold 24 Shenyang J-15 fighter jets and 12 helicopters, and has conducted nine sea trials.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Xinhua reported last November that Beijing had started building its third aircraft carrier and it could be launched in 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Analysts have suggested that the vessel is being built at a shipyard in Shanghai.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-7800999\/Chinas-second-aircraft-carrier-Shandong-enters-service-amid-tensions-Taiwan-US.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amid escalating tensions over the South China Sea, Beijing boosts military firepower with a new 50,000 tonne aircraft carrier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199467"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199470,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199467\/revisions\/199470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}