China commissioned its most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, on 5 November 2025, with President Xi Jinping presiding over the ceremony in Sanya, Hainan. This wasn't just a ribbon-cutting moment. The Fujian represents a genuine technological leap for China's navy, and it's the kind of ship that genuinely changes how naval planners in Washington, Tokyo, and Taipei have to think about the Pacific. So what does it actually do? How does it compare to what the US is fielding? And does the hype match the hardware?
China's Third Carrier and Its Place in the Fleet
The Fujian is China's third aircraft carrier, following the Liaoning and the Shandong. But those two ships were built on a Soviet foundation, using a ski-jump ramp design inherited from an unfinished Ukrainian vessel. The Fujian is different. It was designed and built entirely in China, at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, and it represents what China's naval engineers have been working toward for over a decade.
Its official hull number is CV-18 and it belongs to the Type 003 class. It was laid down around 2016, launched in June 2022, began sea trials in May 2024, and completed nine of them before commissioning in late 2025. That's a genuinely fast development timeline for a ship this complex.
At over 1,000 feet long and roughly 80,000 to 85,000 tonnes, the Fujian is the biggest non-American aircraft carrier ever built, and the largest conventionally powered warship in the world. For context, China's older carriers displace around 60,000 tonnes. The Fujian is in a different weight class entirely.
The Electromagnetic Catapult System: Why It Matters
This is the part that military analysts talk about most, and for good reason. The Fujian uses an electromagnetic catapult system to launch aircraft off its deck. Before this ship, China's carriers relied on a ski-jump ramp, which works fine for lighter aircraft but limits what you can put in the air and how heavy those planes can be loaded. A ramp also can't launch fixed-wing early warning aircraft, which means China's older carriers were effectively operating without airborne radar eyes when they were far from land.
The electromagnetic catapult changes all of that. It can fling heavier, fully armed aircraft off the deck consistently and at a higher rate, and it can handle a wider variety of aircraft types.
The Fujian is the first conventionally powered carrier in the world to operate electromagnetic catapults, a technology that until 2025 existed only on the nuclear-powered USS Gerald R. Ford.
Three catapults are installed on the Fujian: two at the bow and one on the angled deck. The US Ford class has four. That difference matters in sustained high-tempo operations, where sortie generation rates become critical. But for China's current strategic goals, three catapults is a significant step forward from zero.
The Aircraft Fujian Carries
The Fujian's air wing is where things get genuinely interesting. During its sea trials, the Chinese navy successfully launched and recovered three types of aircraft using the electromagnetic catapults: the J-15T, the J-35, and the KJ-600. Each of those represents a capability upgrade over what China's earlier carriers could field.
The J-15T is the catapult-compatible version of the J-15 Flying Shark, strengthened for CATOBAR operations and fitted with an AESA radar. The J-35 is a medium-sized fifth-generation stealth fighter, similar in concept to the US F-35C. And the KJ-600 is an airborne early warning and control aircraft, which finally gives Chinese carrier battle groups the ability to see farther than their own deck when operating at range.
The total fixed-wing capacity is estimated at around 40 aircraft, plus around 12 helicopters. In my reading of the available analysis, the KJ-600 addition is the single most operationally significant change. An aircraft carrier without airborne early warning is, in a sense, half blind beyond visual range. The Fujian fixed that problem in a way neither the Liaoning nor the Shandong ever could.
If you're following China's naval developments and want to go deeper on the J-35 specifically, it's worth comparing it against the F-35C to understand where the capability gap is narrowing and where it isn't.
How the Fujian Compares to US Carriers
This is the question everyone asks, and the honest answer is: it's closer than it was, but there's still a real gap.
The Fujian and the USS Gerald R. Ford both use electromagnetic catapults. That's a genuine point of technological parity on paper. But the Ford class displaces around 100,000 tonnes versus the Fujian's 80,000-plus. The Ford has four catapults to Fujian's three. And critically, the Ford is nuclear powered, meaning it can operate for years without refuelling. The Fujian runs on conventional steam turbines with a maximum unrefuelled range of roughly 8,000 to 10,000 nautical miles. That's a meaningful constraint for sustained blue-water operations far from Chinese ports.
| Specification | Fujian (CV-18) | USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) |
|---|---|---|
| Displacement | ~80,000–85,000 tonnes | ~100,000 tonnes |
| Catapults | 3 (electromagnetic) | 4 (electromagnetic) |
| Propulsion | Conventional (steam turbines) | Nuclear |
| Aircraft capacity | 40 fixed-wing + 12 helicopters | ~75+ aircraft |
| Aircraft elevators | 2 | 3 |
| Commissioned | November 2025 | July 2017 |
There's also the experience gap. The US Navy has been operating carrier battle groups continuously since World War II. China has been at it since 2012 with the Liaoning, and even then those early years were largely training exercises. Operating a carrier effectively in contested waters, integrating an air wing, sustaining flight operations around the clock, and coordinating a battle group are all skills that take years to develop. No amount of advanced hardware closes that gap quickly.
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Limitations Analysts Point To
A few structural constraints are worth noting. The Fujian has only two aircraft elevators, both on the starboard side of the ship. US carriers have three, and their placement allows for more flexible movement of aircraft between the hangar and flight deck. The two-elevator configuration on the Fujian could create bottlenecks during high-tempo flight operations.
The angled landing deck on the Fujian is also narrower than on American carriers. According to analysis from the US Naval Institute, this may limit the carrier's ability to conduct simultaneous takeoffs and landings without overlapping the landing strip with the bow catapults.
Then there's the question of combat readiness. The Fujian was formally commissioned in November 2025, but commissioning and combat readiness are different things. One Chinese military analyst quoted in state media estimated it could take around a year from commissioning before the carrier is genuinely combat ready. The ship returned to Jiangnan Shipyard for maintenance in December 2025, shortly after commissioning. That's normal for a new warship, but it underscores how early in the operational lifecycle the Fujian actually is.
In my view, the Fujian is best understood right now as a proof of concept, and a very capable one at that. China has demonstrated it can design, build, and operate a CATOBAR carrier with electromagnetic launch technology. That's a significant industrial and technological achievement, regardless of how it compares to what the US fields.
What Comes Next: China's Carrier Ambitions Through 2035
The Fujian isn't the endpoint. A fourth Chinese carrier, widely believed to be nuclear powered, was reportedly under construction at Dalian Shipbuilding as of 2025. The US Department of Defense's annual report on Chinese military developments, released in 2025, indicated China intends to acquire six additional carriers over the coming decade. If that timeline holds, China could be operating six or more carriers by 2035.
The Fujian is also widely described by Chinese military commentators as a technology demonstrator for future nuclear-powered carriers. The electromagnetic catapult systems, the integrated power architecture, and the air wing mix being tested on the Fujian are all expected to inform what comes next.
With three carriers now in service, China has the fleet structure needed to keep one carrier deployed, one in training, and one in maintenance at all times.
That "three carrier era" framing matters strategically. Two carriers can't maintain a continuous presence anywhere; one is always in port or under maintenance. Three carriers can. For the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and broader Western Pacific operations, that's a meaningful shift in what the People's Liberation Army Navy can sustain.
The Bottom Line on the Fujian
China's Fujian is a genuinely impressive ship. It's the largest non-nuclear-powered warship ever built, the first conventionally powered carrier in the world to use electromagnetic catapults, and the first Chinese carrier capable of operating a full mix of stealth fighters, electronic warfare aircraft, and fixed-wing early warning planes. Commissioned in November 2025 after nine sea trials, it marks a step-change in what China's navy can project at sea.
That said, it has real limitations. Three catapults instead of four, conventional propulsion rather than nuclear, two elevators instead of three, and a navy that is still building the decades of operational experience US carrier groups carry. The gap with the US Navy is narrowing, but it's still there.
If you want to track how this develops, the key things to watch are the Fujian's first operational deployments in 2026, how the J-35 integration progresses, and any developments on the reported fourth carrier at Dalian. Those will tell you far more about where China's carrier programme is actually headed than any single capability comparison.
