China seeks to project power far beyond its coast with the new Fujian
aircraft carrier
[November 08, 2025]
By DAVID RISING
BANGKOK (AP) — 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.
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In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi
Jinping, center, poses for a group photo with pilots and crew
members on the flight deck of the Fujian aircraft carrier unit after
attending the commissioning and flag-presenting ceremony of the
aircraft carrier at a naval port, in Sanya, southern China's Hainan
Province on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025. (Li Gang/Xinhua via AP)
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 refueled — 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
defense 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 "signaled 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.
___
Albee Zhang in Washington and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to
this report.
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