{"id":362367,"date":"2025-11-07T14:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/362367\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T14:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:39:10","slug":"what-to-know-about-chinas-new-aircraft-carrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/362367\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about China’s new aircraft carrier"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 With the commissioning of its third aircraft carrier<\/a>, China now boasts the second largest number of such ships in the world, though it still lags far behind the 11 operated by the U.S. Navy.<\/p>\n

The Fujian<\/a> was officially put into service this week in a ceremony attended by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the official Xinhua news agency announced Friday. <\/p>\n

Its electromagnetic catapult launchers mark a technological advance that will help the navy to project power deep into the Pacific as it seeks to assert power in disputed waters in the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. <\/p>\n

The Fujian is China\u2019s first domestically designed carrier. Its first, the Liaoning, was refurbished from an unfinished Soviet ship that Ukraine inherited and later sold to China, while the second, the Shandong, was built in China based on the Liaoning\u2019s design. All three carriers are named after coastal Chinese provinces.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s three carriers push it past India, the United Kingdom and Italy, which have two each.<\/p>\n

The Fujian extends the range of China\u2019s navy<\/p>\n

The Fujian is China\u2019s first aircraft carrier with a catapult launch system, which means it can launch heavy and fully-loaded warplanes including an early-warning and control plane. That allows the carrier to operate against distant targets while far out at sea, since it doesn\u2019t have to rely on land-based reconnaissance aircraft to detect threats. Its planes can also carry more arms and fuel, boosting their range and firepower. <\/p>\n

The Shandong and Liaoning have an upward sloping ski-jump deck that can only launch fighter jets with lighter loads and cannot handle large support aircraft.<\/p>\n

Less stress, more flexibility<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also the second carrier in the world with an electromagnetic catapult launch system, after America\u2019s newest carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s 11 carriers all have catapult launchers, but the 10 Nimitz-class carriers use a steam system rather than an electromagnetic one.<\/p>\n

The steam catapults put more stress on both the aircraft and the ship, requiring more maintenance, and take up more space.<\/p>\n

The electromagnetic version operates more efficiently and can also handle a wider range of aircraft, because its launch power can be calibrated to handle both lightweight drones and heavier planes.<\/p>\n

These include the KJ-600 early warning and control plane and China\u2019s latest J-35 stealth fighter and J-15T heavy fighter.<\/p>\n

But it lacks one important feature: nuclear power<\/p>\n

China\u2019s carriers are not nuclear-powered, limiting how long and how far they can sail. Estimates put the Fujian\u2019s operational range at 8,000 to 10,000 nautical miles. America\u2019s carriers are nuclear-powered, giving them virtually unlimited range with no need to refuel.<\/p>\n

China appears to be working on nuclear propulsion for its next-generation carriers, the AP reported last year<\/a>, but the timetable is unclear. The nation\u2019s carrier development is moving in that direction, Zhang Junshe, a researcher at the military\u2019s naval research institute, told state broadcaster CCTV in September.<\/p>\n

Smaller than US carriers<\/p>\n

The Fujian has a full-load displacement of more than 80,000 tons, compared with the 100,000 tons of America\u2019s Nimitz and Ford-class carriers.<\/p>\n

China has not disclosed how many planes the Fujian can carry, but experts estimate it is 40 to 60. The U.S. carriers can hold 60 to 70 planes.<\/p>\n

The Fujian has two aircraft elevators versus three on the USS Ford, a smaller flight deck and three catapults compared to the Ford\u2019s four. Experts say that means the American ship should be able to launch planes more rapidly. <\/p>\n

A second Ford-class carrier is expected to be delivered to the U.S. Navy in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 With the commissioning of its third aircraft carrier, China now boasts the second largest number…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":362368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13214,64,74,13212,57,155993,50,25730,103,107,11762],"class_list":{"0":"post-362367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-china-government","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-gerald-ford","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-u-s-navy","16":"tag-world","17":"tag-world-news","18":"tag-xi-jinping"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115508934476761581","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}