Yeah, the carrier thing worries me. Not that the Chinese have a carrier, but the fact that this has been almost a total non-item in the US news despite it having been announced two months ago. Which means when its sea trials are over and it's "officially" launched, the news networks are liable to frame it as "OMGWTFBBQ the Chinese haz a supercarrier!!!"
It will come as a surprise to many people, and people tend to overreact when surprised. I've said for several years now that I fully expected the Chiense to either build or acquire 1-2 carriers, not for operational use but for OPFOR training purposes. If your primary theoretical enemy has 11 carriers, and those are its main weapons to bring to bear against you, then you want to train to defeat carriers. What better way to train than against an actual carrier? If the Shi Lang/ex-Varyag is China's "worst kept secret", as many news outlets have referred to her, then Chinese focus on anti-carrier weapons and tactics is the second-worst kept secret. They were openly airing roundtable discussions on the different ways China could attack American aircraft carriers on CCTV-7 when I was there. It's not a surprise, nor is it necessarily a sign of "expansionist ambition". It's like the French in 1938 saying "Yeah, we're going to invest in a shitload of anti-tank weapons. And place them along the Rhine." (And no, I'm not trying to say Americans are Nazis.)