China’s first aircraft carrier entered service on Tuesday, in what appears to be a show of force in the East China Sea dispute with Japan, Reuters reported. The carrier, refitted from a ship bought from Ukraine, is unlikely to have much of an operational impact on China’s navy, analysts say, but will be used for training and testing, in preparation for the likely launch in 2015 of China’s first domestically built carrier. Premier Wen Jiabao was reported to have described the event as, “enhancing national defensive power and the country’s overall strength.” Taiwan, which also claims the islands, further raised tensions in the East China Sea on Tuesday when Japanese Coast Guard boats fired water cannons at 40 fishing boats and 12 coast guard vessels from Taiwan that entered the area. China, Taiwan and Japan each claim the same group of islands in the sea, known as the Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese.
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