The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy aviation branch is rapidly evolving from a shore-based defensive force into a sophisticated, global blue-water power with a true supercarrier capital ship. In addition to its newly commissioned supercarrier, the Type 003 Fujian, the tailhook community of the PLAN has begun carrier qualifications for its first stealth fighter. This leap forward is on track to produce an armada of carrier strike groups exponentially faster than the navies that first pioneered naval aviation, like the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

Beijing’s aggressive shipbuilding pipeline aims to expand its naval footprint to nine aircraft carriers by 2035, according to the USNI. The introduction of the Fujian provides the PLAN with its first Catapult-Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery, or CATOBAR, to rival the US Nimitz and Ford-Class aircraft carriers. Compared to the legacy ‘ski jump’ carriers, the Type 003 expands the air group from 30 or 40 planes to between 60 and 75 total aircraft.

A future nine-carrier fleet comprising conventionally powered Type 003 and nuclear-powered Type 004 carriers would give the PLAN the ability to effectively end uncontested US naval dominance in the Pacific. With nine carriers, the PLAN could reliably maintain three fully operational CSGs at sea simultaneously, at all times. The Fujian deployment represents the first major milestone in realizing this ambition for Beijing.

China’s First Flat Top: A New Era In Naval Aviation

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Replacing the ski jump with an electromagnetic catapult system unlocks roughly a 30% increase in maximum payload capacity. That means fighters can launch fully armed with heavy anti-ship missiles and maximum fuel for expanded combat range. The Fujian will also be able to deploy a more diverse air wing, including heavier, more complex platforms like airborne early warning aircraft and drones. The new flat top deck also greatly expands operational tempo, capacity, and mission flexibility for the air wing.

Displacing over 80,000 tons, Fujian introduces a complete overhaul of hull architecture and power systems to support its larger and more advanced air wing. The three EMALS launch catapults can operate independently, allowing the vessel to drastically cut down the time required to launch a strike package. While ski-jump decks create bottlenecks in aircraft positioning, the Type 003 can rapidly cycle its catapults, achieving peak surge launch rates of four to six aircraft per minute during intensive operations.

It is also believed that construction has begun on a fourth hull that will be equipped with nuclear power plants, widely speculated to be the Type 004, according to Jane’s. A combined task force deploying just three of these supercarriers simultaneously could field an airborne armada of 250 to 300 advanced aircraft.

China’s Supercarriers: No More Ski Jumps

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A ski-jump ramp relies entirely on an aircraft possessing a high thrust-to-weight ratio to successfully lift its nose into a climb trajectory at low speeds. On the Liaoning and Shandong, heavy fighters like the J-15 must take off using their own engine thrust up a curved ramp. The most critical metric limiting ski-jump carriers is the sharp reduction in an aircraft’s allowed takeoff weight compared to its true payload and performance limits. To get airborne, they must sacrifice both a full tank of fuel and a maximum missile armament.

On the Legacy Shenyang J-15 Fighter jets, this translates to a roughly 11,000-pound (5,000 kg) penalty. A J-15 Flying Shark has an empty weight of roughly 17,500 kg; this handicap directly cuts its combat radius and mission capability. Because of the strict weight ceiling, commanders must choose between giving a fighter long range or heavy firepower. Additionally, turboprop-powered support platforms like the KJ-600 AEW planes and cargo aircraft are completely unable to use the ski jump, which severely limits the air wing’s overall strategic versatility.

Ski-jump carriers are also severely restricted in terms of air ops because they cannot utilize their full flight deck for simultaneous launch and recovery cycles. This is because launching fighter jets with the highest possible takeoff weight requires using the longest launch track on the deck, which is also the same as the landing track. If a heavy fighter is taxing or launching from the waist, the carrier cannot recover the returning aircraft, creating dangerous airborne bottlenecks during high-tempo combat ops.

Liaoning and Shandong are forced to rely exclusively on helicopters for airborne radar, resupply, search and rescue, as well as other support roles. Helos have lower service ceilings, shorter ranges, and tiny radar arrays compared to fixed-wing planes, leaving the carrier group vulnerable to low-flying threats beyond the horizon. Not only does the Fujian bring better support airframes to the air wing, but the flat flight deck also features designated storage and command nodes for uncrewed platforms, such as ‘loyal wingman’ combat drones.

The Rule of Three: How The PLAN Is Growing

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For any navy aiming to project power, a single operational carrier at sea requires a minimum investment of three identical hulls. This ‘rule of three’ means that for every carrier actively deployed, one is undergoing maintenance and another is conducting workups or other training. The US Navy operates 11 supercarriers, which allows Washington to field three of four Nimitz and Ford-Class ships at the same time.

When the PLAN achieves full fleet strength, one to two CSGs would permanently anchor the First and Second Island Chains. These would likely be the older Liaoning, Shandong, or conventional Type 003s. The nuclear-powered Type 004s, unbound by fuel supply, could be dispatched on blue-water deployments, as Jamestown wrote. That includes the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, or even the Atlantic. Beijing can also choose to concentrate all three of its active carriers directly into the Western Pacific as a major show of force that represents a credible threat to the American Navy.

In an active conflict with a near-peer adversary, the intensity of battle would demand a surge of hulls to support frontline CSGs. With only three total carriers, a single carrier undergoing a deep overhaul leaves the Navy with zero backup if one of the other two is damaged or sunk. With nine carriers, if hostilities erupt, the PLAN can rapidly accelerate the workups of the three training carriers and field a massive force of five to six carriers simultaneously in a crisis. A force that size would equal the number that the USN could realistically deploy and offer a true threat to America’s armada.

Dissecting the Next Era of Chinese Aircraft Carriers

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Unlike the cramped, single-volume Soviet layouts of the Liaoning and Shandong, the Fujian is built much like its American rivals, the Nimitz and Ford-Class flat tops. Because EMALS requires roughly half the internal space of legacy steam catapults, the saved interior volume is used for expanded hangar decks, aviation fuel, and ordnance storage. Unlike the three elevators found on older hulls, the Type 003 has two large, high-speed starboard plane elevators. These mirror US designs, spaced to minimize flight deck interference and accelerate aircraft turnaround times.

The Type 003 and 004 are being constructed with climate-controlled clean zones for fifth-generation stealth fighters that could never be economically retrofitted to the older vessels. Stealth fighters like the J-35 require this to deploy, as the radar absorbent material they are coated with is quickly compromised at sea. Salt air, ocean humidity, and heat degrade coatings rapidly, requiring highly controlled, contaminant-free environments for repair.

Topside, electromagnetic catapults feature fully adjustable launch profiles. Software instantly dials back the force of the launch shuttle to match the exact weight of every airframe in the air wing, even accounting for the specific payload and configuration of every sortie. Not only is it necessary for an air wing with a diverse complement of platforms, but smaller and lighter drones are also unlikely to be safely deployed using a steam catapult due to the high minimum threshold of power. A ‘cat shot’ on a Nimitz-class carrier would likely be a one-time event for most collaborative combat aircraft, or loyal wingman drones.

More is More: China’s Mobile Real Estate

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Supercarriers allow the PLAN to project an air defense umbrella hundreds of miles past the First Island Chain or Taiwan, Okinawa, and the Philippines. The new CSG will sail deep into the Second Island Chain that extends to Guam, home of Andersen Air Force Base. It is one of the few airfields outside the Continental United States where Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bombers land. Moving a fleet led by a supercarrier to this area of the Pacific would be a major blow to the strategic hegemony of US forces in the region.

Not only will newer aircraft carriers have flat decks, but these flight decks will also be much larger. A greater space allows for the simultaneous launch and recovery ops, not possible on ski jump carriers. Also, by shifting from three catapult tracks on the Fujian to four on the Type 004, the carrier’s starboard side is entirely optimized into a dedicated aircraft elevator and helicopter handling lane. This will allow PLAN air wings to perform a wider range of missions at the same time while keeping up with the operational pace of their American counterparts.

The combined strategic and tactical value of the new PLAN CSG would provide Beijing with a political and military tool that is currently only wielded by the US Navy. Sailing a supercarrier strike group off the coast of a smaller nation sends an unmistakable message of power, allowing Beijing to flex its naval might as political signaling that extends its diplomatic influence across Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Similarly, a carrier strike group provides a powerful deterrent in China’s military arsenal that is less escalatory than the threat of ballistic missile strikes and a reusable, scalable tool for ‘gunboat’ diplomacy. China is the world’s largest trading nation and relies entirely on open sea lanes for its economic growth, yet it lacks the naval power to protect them far from home. A carrier strike group can protect Chinese interests anywhere on the globe by establishing a continuous no-fly zone, conducting maritime patrols, launching precise drone strikes, or providing humanitarian aid.