The South China Morning Post, based on a scan of Chinese state media reports, states that the carrier was "taking shape."
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China's second aircraft carrier may be custom made to counter the US in the South China Sea
China has made excellent progress developing its second aircraft carrier, and Chinese state-run media says it could start patrolling the South China Sea by 2019.
China's second aircraft carrier is making steady progress.
Taylor Mavin, a UC San Diego graduate student in international affairs, notes for Smoke and Stir that these smaller, Soviet-designed carriers were built with the idea of coastal defense, not seaborne power projection, being the main goal:
"Since a major confrontation between NATO and Warsaw Pact would most likely take place in Europe, during the later Cold War Soviet planners focused on protecting the heavily defended 'bastions' shielding their ballistic missile submarines and not seaborne power projection.
China's navy has undergone rapid modernization in the last few years with particular emphasis on fielding submarines. So while a Chinese carrier couldn't travel to say, Libya, and project power like a US carrier could, it might just be custom made for the South China Sea.
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But don't expect the world's most populous nation to stop at two carriers. A recent report from Defense News states that satellite imagery from China shows the nation developing catapults to possibly field on a US-style carrier.
Taken in concert with China's other efforts to create anti-access/area-denial technology like extremely long-range missiles, the US will have to have its work cut out for it in trying to offer any meaningful counter to China's expansionism in the Pacific.
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