The importance of China announcing it's building second aircraft carrier

Beijing: China says it is building its second aircraft carrier, this time entirely with domestic technology.

Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Yang Yujun told reporters at a news conference today that the 50,000-ton vessel is being built in the northern port of Dalian.

China currently operates one refurbished aircraft carrier purchased from Ukraine but armed and equipped in China. That carrier has yet to take on its full aviation complement.

Yang said the second carrier is being built entirely with domestic technology but had drawn on China's experience refitting its first carrier, the Liaoning.

China's rapid naval modernization is seen as aimed at asserting its maritime claims and extending its power far from its shores. Those ambitions have raised tensions with Japan, the US and Southeast Asian nations with conflicting territorial claims.