China’s latest aircraft carrier enters fleet as naval competition with the US heats up

By Laura Sharman, Brad Lendon, Simone McCarthy, CNN

(CNN) — China’s latest and most capable aircraft carrier has officially entered service, a significant step forward for Beijing as it seeks to catch up with the United States on naval supremacy.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping attended the commissioning ceremony for the Fujian at a military port in Sanya on Hainan island earlier this week, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported on Friday.

The Fujian is China’s third and most advanced aircraft carrier, featuring electromagnetic catapults that can launch three aircraft types, according to Chinese state media.

The new tech, known as EMALS, allows planes to take off with heavier weapon and fuel loads, so they can strike enemy targets at greater distances.

The only other aircraft carrier in the world that has the EMALS system is the US Navy’s newest carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, which was certified for flight deck operations using the EMALS system in the spring of 2022.

The decision to adopt the technology for the Fujian was personally made by Xi, Chinese state media said.

More than 2,000 navy and aircraft carrier construction personnel looked on from stands along the dock as Xi joined an honor guard in a flag ceremony for the commissioning, which took place Wednesday afternoon. The Chinese leader then toured the vessel, including inspecting the mess hall and giving a trial press of the ship’s catapult button, according to CCTV.

Three catapult launch positions were “prominently displayed” on the flight deck as well as carrier-based aircraft including China’s J-35, J-15T and KJ-600, CCTV said, while the country’s second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, was positioned on the slip nearby – bolstering the optics of this latest show of military might.

The Fujian was launched in 2022 and began sea trials in 2024. Its official commissioning has been highly anticipated in China, where the country’s rapid military modernization, including the expansion of its navy, has been a deep source of national pride.

On Chinese social media Friday, news of the commissioning was a top trending-subject, with a hashtag “My country’s first electromagnetic catapult-equipped aircraft carrier enters service” racking up more than 10 million views in the space of an hour.

Naval build-up

China has built the world’s largest navy, launching high-tech warships at a frenetic pace under Xi’s leadership as the country has become more aggressive in asserting territorial claims in the contested South China Sea and increasingly looked to project its naval power in the region and further afield.

In terms of sheer number of ships, Beijing’s navy is now bigger than Washington’s and Chinese shipyards can churn out new builds at a far higher rate. But the US maintains a significant technological advantage and can field far more aircraft carriers.

Nuclear power gives the US carriers the ability to remain at sea for as long as crew provisions last. The Fujian is powered by conventional fuel, meaning it must either make a port call or be met by a tanker at sea to refuel.

And despite incorporating the EMALS technology, two former US carrier officers told CNN last month that the Fujian’s air operations may still run at only about 60% the rate of a 50-year-old US Navy carrier due to the configuration of the carrier’s flight deck.

The carrier is China’s first to forgo the ski jump-style ramp used on the flight decks of the country’s smaller, existing carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, to get aircraft airborne under their own power – and the vessel have been praised within China as a proof of the country’s emergence as a major aircraft carrier power.

Displacing 80,000 tons, it is the closest thing afloat to the US Navy’s 97,000-ton Nimitz-class carriers.

And China is already in the process of building another carrier, for now known as the Type 004, which is expected to not only employ EMALS technology, but also – unlike the Fujian – be nuclear-powered.

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CNN’s Fred He contributed to this report.