Home-grown aircraft carrier Fujian will be the tip of China’s blue-water spear

Almost a decade has passed since the People’s Liberation Army pulled the trigger on President Xi Jinping’s plans for a massive overhaul of the world’s biggest military. In the latest of a series on Chinese weapon systems, Seong Hyeon Choi investigates the role of its aircraft carriers.

China’s third and most advanced aircraft carrier the Fujian represents the tip of the Chinese navy’s spear and is a crucial part of Beijing’s efforts to keep up with the US carrier strike groups in the Indo-Pacific region.

The People’s Liberation Army plans to have six carriers by 2035, a fleet that would make it the world’s second-largest blue-water navy after the United States.

Launch and sea trials

The Fujian was launched on June 17, 2022 – the same date China tested its first hydrogen bomb in 1967 – and is named after the mainland province that faces the Taiwan Strait.

Sea trials began in May, just as the PLA Navy’s older carriers were being increasingly deployed to the east coast of Taiwan – the weak side of the self-ruled island’s defences – to pressure Taipei with shipborne aircraft.

The conventionally powered Type 003 aircraft carrier is expected to be ready for service this year, nearly 10 years after its construction started at Shanghai’s Jiangnan shipyard in 2015. As of last month, the Fujian had conducted a total of six trials.

Technological advancement

  

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