Chinese officials confirmed on November 18 that China’s second aircraft carrier Type 002, also the first homemade aircraft carrier, successfully passed the Taiwan Strait on the 17th and went to the South China Sea for testing and training.
An official video was released with many details, including foreign warships trailing China’s second aircraft carrier. According to China’s official media “Global Times” news, Type 002 aircraft carrier sailed from the north to the south into the Taiwan Strait, with the US Navy “Wayne Meyer” destroyer and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force “Shimakaze” destroyer following behind.
In response, Cheng Dewei, spokesperson for China Navy, said that the organization of the trial and training of the domestic aircraft carrier across the region is a normal arrangement in its construction process, and it does not target any specific target and has nothing to do with the current situation.
In addition to being followed by US and Japanese warships, the passage through the Taiwan Strait is the ship’s ninth sea trial in the past two and a half years, while this is its first time of crossing different sea areas and carrying armed aircrafts – three J-15 fighters with missiles, instead of models.
Type 002 aircraft carrier was all completed by China, from its design to construction. Its construction was started in November 2013, it was launched at the Dalian Shipyard on April 26, 2017, and completed its first offshore test mission in May 2018.