The new carrier, known for now as Type 001A, is being built by the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation Construction of a third is already underway by China State Shipbuilding Corporation at the Jiangnan shipyard near Shanghai.
China has launched its first indigenously built aircraft, which military experts say will give the country greater control over the global waters as well as boost defenses across its coastline.
That will leave China well short of being able to challenge the United States which operates 10 carriers and plans to build two more, and has decades of experience operating them.
Dock construction started in March 2015.
The BBC observes that China's carriers are "technologically inferior" to the ten carriers now operated by the United States Navy, relying on conventional instead of nuclear power, but still represent a major step forward in both technological innovation and military power for China.
China launched its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in 2011, after buying and equipping its rusting Soviet-era hull from Ukraine in 1998.
The new carrier launch in China may result in a competition to acquire greater military capabilities in the region.
The launch was attended by the vice-president of China's central military commission, Fan Changlong.
"The move will help to strengthen our capability to safeguard national sovereignty, territorial integrity, as well as major and core interests", Ma said at a press conference in Beijing.
China's "expansionist behaviour in the South China Sea and its aggressive efforts to undermine the security of Taiwan and Japan, in particular, have translated into a situation where few countries now trust that Beijing has benign motives", Mr Easton noted.
It will probably be two or three years before China's newest carrier is commissioned, bringing it into operation. Among them, only India has an aircraft carrier, one a little smaller than the Liaoning.
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It said though India acquired aircraft carriers earlier than China, India lacked indigenous research and development which has affected its plans to have three aircraft carriers.
Speaking at a monthly news briefing, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun would not say how many more carriers China wanted to build, only that future developments could give "overall consideration" to various factors.
"It is highly unlikely to pose a threat to the USA if you look at how advanced American aircraft carriers are", Char said. Fueled by a fast-growing defense budget that is now the world's second biggest after the U.S., China's navy has also been acquiring destroyers, nuclear submarines and other ultramodern vessels.
The launch of the aircraft carrier comes amid China's assertiveness in the resource-rich South China Sea.
Constructed by the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company, the unnamed carrier is officially a Type 001A aircraft carrier, designed based on the Kuznetsov-class carriers that were the last class commissioned by the Soviet Union.
It is the country's second aircraft carrier, after the Liaoning, and the first to be made domestically.
"It allows China to project power far off-shore, and protect its expanding overseas interests", Anthony says.
Chinese state media has quoted experts as saying that the country needs at least six carriers.
Unlike China, India operated the aircraft carrier since 1961.
The U.S. carrier's commissioning is pending.
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