From Dave Majumdar, The National Interest: “Compared to the Liaoning—which was rebuilt from the decaying hulk of the Soviet Kuznetsov-class Baku—the Beijing’s new Type-001A will be much improved. Particularly, the Chinese have improved the crew spaces—which have never been a priority onboard Russian vessels.”
From Stratfor: “China could influence the behavior of its neighbors, but it did so as often as possible by demonstrating power but rarely using it. So long as the neighbors did not fundamentally counter China's core interests, they were largely left to their own devices. In this manner, China could remain central to a regional system while expending little in time, effort or resources to enforce its will. In short, most countries, most of the time, largely accepted the arrangement, both for cultural reasons and because the cost of direct challenge was often too high.”
The Imperative of Chinese History and Geography
From Morgan Deane, Strategy Bridge: “Chinese behavior in the South China Sea is viewed by many as implacably aggressive. China contends it is consistently defensive and even pacifistic. To cut through the rhetoric we can look at the combination of geography and history in the past 150 years to explain Chinese behavior. As Stratfor has noted, China has core geographic imperatives. Western powers (and Japan after adopting Western weapons and attitudes) penetrated these core territories during a long period of weakness that lasted from about 1840 to 1950. As a result, since 1950 Chinese leaders have fought offensive and often preemptive wars with each one of their neighbors, but they’ve been able to claim these are defensive measures. A careful look at the history suggests there is some merit to Chinese positions, but most often they are used as rhetoric to justify aggression.”
From NDTV: “China is building a third aircraft carrier based on American models as it seeks to fortify its claims in the disputed South China Sea and dominate the larger Indian Ocean region to realise its blue water aspirations. Chinese experts said China is on course to build 5-6 aircraft carriers.”