AND THEN THERE WERE TWO: China Launches First Home-Built Aircraft Carrier, Boosting Naval Power.

The new carrier, festooned in red flags and ribbons and with a bottle of champagne smashed over its bow, slid from a dry dock into the water in a shipyard ceremony in the northeastern port city of Dalian on Wednesday, state media reported. About two years of sea trials are expected before the still-unnamed ship becomes fully operational, Chinese and Western military experts say.

“We aim to safeguard our sovereignty and state interests and world peace by developing our military forces including maritime forces,” said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman at a regular news briefing on Tuesday.

China has been rapidly modernizing and expanding its naval operations over the last two decades, partly to ensure military superiority over Asian neighbors, some of which contest Chinese territorial claims, and to prevent the U.S. from intervening in regional conflicts.

There’s more to it than just a flight deck, however:

He said that other evidence of China’s long-term plans included constructing a new class of supply vessels modeled on leading U.S. counterparts, a new class of cruisers designed in part to protect carriers, and its first overseas naval facility, in the east African nation of Djibouti.

China “appears to be priming other ports to support its growing seaward presence,” Mr. Erickson said.

China is getting serious about power projection for the first time since Zheng He’s fleet was called home 600 years ago.