BEIJING, Aug 10: China launched its first aircraft carrier for a maiden run on Wednesday, a step likely to boost patriotic pride at home and jitters abroad about Beijing’s naval ambitions.

The long-awaited debut of the vessel, a refitted former Soviet craft, marked a step forward in China’s long-term plan to build a carrier force that could project power into the Asian region, where seas are spanned by busy shipping lanes and thorny territorial disputes.

“Its symbolic significance outweighs its practical significance,” said Ni Lexiong, an expert on Chinese maritime policy at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

“We’re already a maritime power, and so we need an appropriate force, whether that’s aircraft carriers or battleships, just like the United States or the British empire did,” he said in a telephone interview.

The carrier “left its shipyard in Dalian Port in northeast Liaoning province on Wednesday morning to start its first sea trial,” said the official Xinhua news agency, describing the trip as a tentative test run for the unfinished ship.

The aircraft carrier, which is about 300 metres long, ploughed through fog and sounded its horn three times as it left the dock, Xinhua said on its military news micro-blog.

Xinhua said that “building a strong navy that is commensurate with China’s rising status is a necessary step and an inevitable choice for the country to safeguard its increasingly globalised national interests”.

Chinese citizens said the carrier launch showed their country deserved more respect from the rest of the world, despite problems it faced at home.

“An aircraft carrier is the mark of major powers,” Pan Chunli, a 29-year-old IT technician in Beijing said.

“China has grown dramatically. The whole world should take a fresh look at China, viewing it as a rising power that has the ability to defend its rights and territory.”

Retired Chinese navy Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo told state-run television that his country intended to build an air carrier group, but the task would be long and difficult. “As for forming a carrier group, I think that will take at least ten years,” he told a Chinese television broadcast on the carrier launch.

Last month, China confirmed that it was refitting the old, unfinished Soviet carrier hull bought from Ukraine’s government, and sources said it was also building two of its own carriers.

“China has had a longstanding fascination with the national prestige attached to aircraft carriers, and this first sea trial may be seen as a crucial step towards the goal of achieving great naval power status,” said Chengxin Pan, an expert on China at Deakin University in Australia.

If Beijing is serious about having a viable carrier strike group, however, it will need three carriers, Ashley Townshend at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney said in an interview before the debut of the vessel. China would also have to develop support ships and aircraft for any carrier group, Townshend said.

In China’s neighbourhood, India and Thailand already have aircraft carriers, and Australia has ordered two multi-purpose carriers. The United States operates 11 carriers.—Reuters