It's Navy Day in China today. Could the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy take the chance to launch China's first domestically-built aircraft carrier?
The carrier, Type 001A, is reportedly undergoing in-water testing at its shipyard in Dalian, a coastal city in northeastern China's Liaoning Province.
Pictures circulating on the Internet suggest the scaffold around the carrier has already been removed, and water was being filled into the shipyard's drydock.
Web photo said to be taken on April 23, 2017 showing part of the carrier. /Weibo
Some military watchers claiming to be in Dalian even gave the exact time of launch as 15:00 BJT (07:00 GMT). But it's already 22:00 at time of writing, and there has been no confirmation of this happening.
Comparing the 001A, Liaoning & USS Carl Vinson.
Global Times posted an article right after 15:00 BJT saying that the "chance is closing to zero that the domestic carrier will sail today."
Two reasons were suggested in the article. The first is that there's no decoration on the ship; the second is that "filling water in the shipyard is unrelated to an actual launch."
Netizens on China's Weibo microblog have claimed a rehearsal was conducted onsite, but with no solid proof.
Web photo said to be taken on April 23, 2017 showing military fans and media reporters keeping an eye on the carrier. /Weibo
Global Times cited "experts" as saying that the launch may now happen in three or four days.
Latest update about the launch.
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