The Chinese navy is conducting two sets of military exercises involving its two aircraft carriers off its northeast shoreline, the first time both carriers are simultaneously engaged in military drills off the Chinese coast, Asia Times reports.
The Liaoning, a completed Soviet aircraft carrier purchased by China in 1998, had previously been used only for training but was converted to combat service in 2019. The second Chinese carrier, the Shandong, the first domestically-built aircraft carrier, went into service in 2018.
The exercises are expected to combine for joint exercises when the individual exercises, in the Bohai and Yellow Seas, are completed.
The two carriers are part of China’s new effort to exert its power–military, economic and societal–to all corners of the world. They will be the cornerstones of new Chinese fleets being built within the nation.