China seeks to project power far beyond its coast with the new Fujian aircraft carrier

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, China's third conventionally powered aircraft carrier, the Fujian, conducts a maiden sea trial on May 7, 2024. (Ding Ziyu/Xinhua via AP, File)

BANGKOK — China has commissioned its latest aircraft carrier after extensive sea trials, state media reported Friday, adding a ship that experts say will help what is already the world’s largest navy expand its power farther beyond its own waters.

The official Xinhua news agency said the Fujian had been commissioned Wednesday at a naval base on southern China’s Hainan island in a ceremony attended by top leader Xi Jinping.

The Fujian is China’s third carrier and the first that it both designed and built itself. It is perhaps the most visible example so far of Xi’s massive military overhaul and expansion that aims to have a modernized force by 2035 and one that is “world class” by mid century — which most take to mean capable of going toe-to-toe with the United States.

With it, Beijing takes another step toward closing the gap with the U.S. navy and its carrier fleet and network of bases that allow it to maintain a presence around the world.

“Carriers are key to Chinese leadership’s vision of China as a great power with a blue-water navy,” or one that can project power far from its coastal waters, said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

China wants to contest waters as far as Guam

For China’s navy, one goal is to dominate the near waters of the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea around the so-called First Island Chain, which runs south through Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. But deeper into the Pacific, it also wants to be able to contest control of the Second Island Chain, where the U.S. has important military facilities on Guam and elsewhere, Poling said.

“A carrier doesn’t really help you in the First Island Chain, but it’s key to that contest, if you want one, with the Americans in the wider Indo-Pacific,” Poling said.

China’s “increasingly capable military” and ability to “project power globally” is one of the reasons the Pentagon in its latest report to Congress continued to call it “the only competitor to the United States with the intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order.”

At the same time, it is Beijing’s right to “transform its navy into a blue-water strategic navy commensurate with China’s national strength,” said Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong-based military affairs expert.

“China’s carriers cannot just operate near home, they must operate in the distant oceans and far seas to carry out various training and support missions,” Song said. “China is a great power and our overseas interests span the globe; we need to be globally present.”

News that the Fujian had been commissioned was met with wariness in nearby Japan. Minoru Kihara, a former defense minister and now chief cabinet secretary in Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s new government, said it underscores that China is “extensively and rapidly strengthening its military power without transparency.”

“We believe that China’s military intends to advance its operational capability at distant sea and air by strengthening sea power,” he told reporters, emphasizing that Japan was watching China’s military activity and would “calmly but decisively respond” if necessary.

One possibility that raises concerns in foreign capitals is a possible Chinese blockade or invasion of the democratically self-governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory and which leader Xi Jinping has not ruled out taking by force.

Though the island sits right off of China’s coast, if China had the ability to position an aircraft carrier group or groups around the Second Island Chain — between Taiwan and the U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters in Hawaii — that could delay possible American military assistance in the event of a Chinese attack.

“They want those aircraft carriers to play a part in kind of extending the strategic perimeter farther out from China, and one of the important things that an aircraft carrier can do is extend the range of China’s domain awareness to keep an eye on activities in the air, on the sea, and below the sea,” said Brian Hart, deputy director of CSIS’s China Power Project.

With the Fujian, China’s warplanes can deploy far from its shores

China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was Soviet made and its second, the Shandong, was built in China but based on the Soviet model. Both use older-style ski-jump type systems to help planes take flight.

The Fujian skips past the steam catapult technology used on most American carriers to employ an electromagnetic launch system found only on the latest U.S. navy Ford-class carriers.

The system causes less stress to the aircraft and the ship, allows for more precise control over speed and can launch a wider range of aircraft than the steam system. Compared to the ski-jump system, it gives China the ability to launch heavier aircraft, with full fuel loads, like the KJ-600 early warning and control plane, which it successfully tested during its sea trials.

Its latest J-35 stealth fighter and J-15T heavy fighter were also launched from the Fujian, giving the new carrier “full-deck operation capability” according to the Chinese navy.

The ability to carry its own reconnaissance aircraft means unlike its first two carriers, it won’t be operating blind when out of the range of land-based support, giving it the ability to operate its most advanced aircraft far afield including the Second Island Chain.

“The Fujian carrier is a big leapfrog for China in terms of the capabilities of its aircraft carriers compared to the first two,” Hart said.

China’s carriers aren’t nuclear powered, limiting their range

Still, Hart noted, China’s navy lags behind the U.S. in several significant ways.

Numerically it only has three carriers compared to the U.S. Navy’s 11, and while China’s carriers are all conventionally powered, the U.S.’s are all nuclear powered which means they can operate almost indefinitely without being refuelled — dramatically increasing their range. The Ford-class carrier, of which only one is currently in service but more are being built, is also larger, can carry more aircraft on its flight deck, and has a third elevator that means it can move more aircraft from lower deck hangars in less time.

China also lags behind the U.S. in guided missile cruisers and destroyers, which are critical in providing air and submarine defence and support for larger naval groups, as well as nuclear-powered submarines.

The U.S. is also ahead in vertical launching system cells — basically the systems for holding and launching missiles from ships — which is a measure of how much firepower vessels can carry, though China is increasing that capacity, Hart said.

Beyond just equipment, China lacks the network of overseas bases that the U.S. has, which are critical for resupplying carriers and also providing alternative runways should aircraft not be able to return safely to the carrier.

China is working on expanding its foreign bases, however, and has a nuclear propulsion system for a carrier in development.

There’s also evidence that China is already building another carrier. Chinese shipyards have the capabilities to build more than one at once and have also been churning out other new vessels at a pace the U.S. can’t currently come close to matching.

“Really across the board, China’s closing the gap,” Hart said.

“They’re fielding and building more aircraft carriers, they’re fielding more nuclear-powered subs, they are fielding more, larger destroyers and other vessels that carry a larger number of missiles. So they’re really catching up.”

The Fujian is just one of China’s latest military assets

China has happily shown off its new military assets, releasing video of the KJ-600, J-35 and J-15T test flights from the Fujian.

A World War II Victory Day parade at the start of September showcased all three aircraft along with hypersonic glide vehicles — whose high-speed, maneuverability and other attributes make them more difficult to intercept than traditional ballistic missiles — aerial and underwater drones and electronic warfare systems.

Sophisticated new equipment does not necessarily translate to military readiness, however, said Singapore-based analyst Tang Meng Kit, who noted that China hasn’t fought a war since 1979 and that the carefully choreographed parade was good at “amplifying perceptions of strength.”

“It is possible that China’s capabilities are overstated, as real-world operational readiness lags behind its showcased arsenal,” he told the AP.

He also cautioned in a recent analysis for the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore that it would be a mistake to see China’s military modernization as simply geared toward a possible Taiwan invasion, which he said is only one part of a “larger mosaic.”

The parade “signalled China’s broader strategic intent, which is to deter major powers, pressure regional actors, expand its global influence, and reinforce its domestic legitimacy,” he said.

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David Rising, The Associated Press

Albee Zhang in Washington and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.