Work on China's second aircraft carrier is underway, apparently a secret that ended up appearing on social networks and a newspaper, which officials did a poor job of covering up.

The construction of a new carrier can send jitters to China's neighbors - Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines - which are locked in maritime territorial rows with Beijing.

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Local officials of the city of Changzhou, in China's Jiangsu province, were proud to report on Sunday through social media that a local company bagged a contract to provide electrical supplies for the carrier.

The post was later erased but not before it went viral. A local newspaper report about the carrier was also taken out.

China's growing maritime power could be unsettling for the U.S. and the east Asian region. Last year, a U.S. congressional paper said China's navy would have more armed ships than the U.S., warning that "the balance of power" in Asia was changing in China's favor.

An opinion article in the pro-establishment Global Times pointed out that China, the second-biggest global economy, lags behind not only Western powers but also its southern neighbor, India, in the number of aircraft carriers.

While New Delhi controls two existing carriers and has one more in the making, China has only one, which is a training vessel repurposed from an old Ukrainian carrier. The commentator, Sun Xiaobo, said China's single carrier does not match China's rising economic clout.

Beijing claims the U.S. is encouraging the Philippines and Japan to be more assertive in their territorial differences with Beijing.

Last year, the secretary of Liaoning province's Communist Party was quoted as saying that building a second carrier already started in a Dalian shipyard, where the first carrier is based. The official added that work is expected be finished by 2020.

The China Digital Times, a group policing online news in the country, said authorities wanted all reports of the official's announcement to be erased. 

TagsChina military buildup, Aircraft carrier