At the end of November China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, formed a battle group to undertake ocean-based maneuvers in the South China Sea for the first time. Military expert Cao Weidong told the CCTV in an interview that during the training the Liaoning would assess its performance in three combat areas: air and missile defense, anti-ship offense, and anti-submarine offense.

On the morning of November 26th, the Liaoning set sail from the naval port of Qingdao for the South China Sea accompanied by the guided missile destroyers Shenyang and Shijiazhuang, and the guided missile frigates Yantai and Weifang, to conduct technical trials and military training.

The long term ocean-going voyage and the assessment of the performance of critical items of equipment in continuous operation are tests and exercises relevant to general naval training, and there will be appraisal of the performance of equipment in different meteorological and hydrological conditions.

According to CCTV reports, the Liaoning will undertake weapon system training in the South China Sea. Cao Weidong pointed out that an aircraft carrier formation needs to possess three core capacities to be battle effective - air and missile defensive systems, anti-ship offensive systems, and anti-submarine offensive systems. Weapons testing should be conducted in all three of these areas to enhance current combat capability.

In terms of air and missile defense, tests will be carried out on effective radar range. In terms of anti-ship offense, the ability to discover and maintain control over targets will be assessed, and the sequence of target arrivals will be calculated while the power of ship-to-ship missiles will be tested. In terms of anti-submarine offense, the aim will be to search specified sea areas and identify specific target types.

Cao Weidong also observed that future wars are likely to be electronic wars, and therefore during this South China Sea exercise the aircraft carrier formation should also conduct tests in the fields of information countermeasures and communications.