China will commission its first aircraft carrier into active although limited service Aug. 1, according to UPI. The Chinese navy will take over the 55,000-ton vessel, purchased as an unfinished project from Ukraine in 1998 and deploy it in the increasingly political arena of the South China Sea, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported. China's People's Liberation Army Deputy Navy Commander Xu Hongmeng confirmed the commissioning and other tests to the newspaper. China bought the hull of the unfinished vessel in 1998, with no guns and engines, from a Ukrainian shipyard where it had been under construction. It was left unfinished after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving Ukraine with Soviet bases and equipment. The vessel remains officially unnamed in China but is referred to by its old name -- Varyag -- when mentioned in reports. The vessel, an Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier, measures around 1,000 feet in length and 122 feet wide at the water line. The August commissioning will move China into the small group of nations that have aircraft carriers. "Currently, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Spain, Italy, India, Brazil and Thailand, operate a total of 21 active-service aircraft carriers," Xinhua said. Chinese officials have gone out of their way to stress since August that the vessel isn't aimed at offensive military operations. It is to be used for training naval staff and pilots, as well as scientific work, China's state-run news agency Xinhua said in December. The Naval-Technology Web site also said the Chinese navy will begin flying its domestically built J-15 fighter -- still under development -- from the carrier. "Trial runs for the Shenyang J-15, a carrier-based fighter aircraft that will operate from the Varyag are also in the pipeline," Xu said. "China will need at least three aircraft carriers."
