China Commissions Advanced Fujian Aircraft Carrier, Signaling Growing Naval Ambitions

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – In a powerful and meticulously choreographed display of its rapidly expanding naval might, China has officially commissioned its newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, in a ceremony presided over by the country's top leader, Xi Jinping.

The warship's entry into service, announced by state media on Friday, marks a significant milestone in Beijing's ambitious, decades-long quest to build a "world-class" blue-water navy, one capable of projecting power far beyond its own shores and, ultimately, of challenging the long-held naval dominance of the United States in the Western Pacific.

The commissioning of the Fujian, China's third carrier and the first to be entirely domestically designed and built, is the most visible and formidable symbol yet of President Xi's massive military overhaul. As reported by the official Xinhua News Agency, the ceremony took place on Wednesday at a naval port in the city of Sanya, on the southern island province of Hainan.

Dressed in army green in his role as chairman of the Central Military Commission, President Xi strode the deck of the massive vessel, inspecting its advanced systems and aircraft, a potent image of a leader personally overseeing his nation's rise as a premier maritime power.

The Fujian represents a dramatic technological leap forward for the Chinese navy.

Unlike its two predecessors, the Liaoning and the Shandong—both based on older, Soviet-era designs that use a ski-jump-style ramp for takeoffs—the Fujian is equipped with a state-of-the-art electromagnetic catapult system for launching and landing aircraft.

This technology, as noted by The New York Times, appears similar to the system used on the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, the newest generation of American aircraft carriers. This advanced system allows the Fujian to launch a wider range of aircraft, including heavier planes carrying larger payloads of fuel and weapons, and to do so at a much faster rate, a critical capability for any modern carrier.

Chinese state media made a point of noting that President Xi had "personally decided" that the Fujian should use this demanding technology, a detail that seems to be a subtle jab at U.S. President Donald Trump, who just last month publicly railed against the electromagnetic system on the U.S. carrier as unreliable, vowing to return future American carriers to older, steam-propelled launchers.

While China's carrier fleet still lags behind that of the United States both in number and sophistication—China now has three conventionally powered carriers compared to America's eleven, all of which are nuclear-powered—the Fujian is the first Chinese carrier to begin to close that significant gap in terms of size and capability.

Its commissioning is a clear and tangible step in China's long-term strategic goal, as outlined in the Pentagon's latest report to Congress, to not only dominate the near waters of the South China Sea and East China Sea but to be able to contest control of the "Second Island Chain" in the deeper Pacific, where the U.S. maintains crucial military facilities on Guam.

"Carriers are key to Chinese leadership’s vision of China as a great power with a blue-water navy," Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Associated Press. "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."

The potential implications of this expanding naval power are a source of growing concern in capitals across the region and in Washington.

One of the most frequently cited scenarios is a potential blockade or invasion of the democratically self-governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory. While analysts cited by The New York Times suggest that aircraft carriers would be unlikely to play a prominent role in an initial military action against Taiwan, given the island's close proximity to China's numerous mainland air bases, they could be used to encircle the island and, critically, to deter or delay any potential American military assistance.

"They want those aircraft carriers to play a part in kind of extending the strategic perimeter farther out from China," Brian Hart, deputy director of CSIS’s China Power Project, told the AP. By positioning a carrier group between Taiwan and the U.S. Pacific Fleet's headquarters in Hawaii, China could significantly complicate an American response to an attack.

The Fujian's advanced catapult system is key to this power projection capability. It gives China the ability to launch not only its latest J-35 stealth fighters and J-15T heavy fighters, but also, for the first time, its own airborne early warning and control aircraft, the KJ-600.

The ability to deploy its own reconnaissance and command-and-control planes means the Fujian, unlike its predecessors, will not be "operating blind" when it is far from the range of its land-based support, giving it the ability to operate its most advanced aircraft deep into the Pacific.

The commissioning of the Fujian is also a significant political victory for President Xi, providing a powerful display of national strength and technological achievement that may serve as a "political salve," as The New York Times described it, after a series of embarrassing revelations of corruption within the high ranks of the People's Liberation Army.

In October, China announced that nine senior officers, including a general who was third in the military hierarchy, had been dismissed and were facing prosecution on charges of corruption and abuses of power. The grand ceremony for the Fujian serves to redirect the public narrative toward one of military modernization and national pride.

Despite this major leap forward, analysts are quick to point out that China still has a long way to go to achieve true parity with the U.S. Navy. The numerical and technological gap in carriers remains vast. All U.S. carriers are nuclear-powered, giving them almost unlimited range, a capability China is still working to develop.

The U.S. also maintains a significant lead in the number of guided missile cruisers and destroyers that are essential for protecting a carrier strike group, as well as in its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Beyond the hardware, China also lacks the global network of overseas bases that are critical for resupplying and supporting carrier operations far from home. And while China's shipyards are churning out new vessels at a pace the U.S. cannot currently match, there is also the crucial human element.

As Aita Moriki, a research fellow at Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies, wrote in a recent assessment, mastering the complex art of carrier operations—the "ballet" of quickly and safely launching and recovering swarms of aircraft—will take the Chinese Navy some time to perfect, as "many technological and personnel challenges remain."

Nevertheless, the trajectory is clear. Satellite images suggest that China is already building a fourth carrier, and there is evidence that it is developing a nuclear propulsion system for future vessels. "Really across the board, China’s closing the gap,” Brian Hart of CSIS told the AP.

As the Fujian prepares to take its place at the head of a new and more powerful Chinese naval fleet, its commissioning sends an unmistakable signal to the world: a new maritime great power has arrived, and the strategic balance in the world's most vital waterway is being redrawn.