Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping formally commissioned the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN's) new aircraft carrier, 'Fujian', in a ceremony at Sanya naval port on Hainan Island.
The Fujian’s Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) was particularly highlighted during the event. Designed in China and named after the country's southeastern province facing Taiwan, this conventionally powered aircraft carrier running on steam turbines with diesel generators is the largest and most advanced warship built by China.
With a full-load displacement of over 80,000 tonnes, it’s larger than France’s ‘Charles de Gaulle’ carrier (~42,000 tonnes) and the UK’s HMS ‘Queen Elizabeth’ (~65,000 tonnes), but is smaller than the US Navy’s Nimitz and Ford-class carriers (~100,000 tonnes).
Launching Aircraft From Carriers
Aircraft carriers have traditionally utilised three broad methods for launching aircraft from their deck.
The first involves use of Vertical Take-Off & Landing aircraft like the British ‘Sea-Harrier’ or the Short Take-Off & Vertical Landing variants as the US’ F-35B.
The second is the Short Take-Off, Barrier-Arrested Recovery system (STOBAR), in which the aircraft relies on its engine power with a ski-jump at the end to assist the aircraft upwards. Both these systems restrict aircraft take-off weight and payload, and limit sortie rate.
The third is the Catapult-Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR). This has customarily used steam-powered catapults to rapidly propel the aircraft to take-off speeds, with the US Navy’s latest aircraft carrier, Gerald Ford (CVN-78), pioneering the EMALS.
China’s first two aircraft carriers, ‘Liaoning’ and ‘Shandong’, are equipped with STOBAR systems.
The limitations of STOBAR, and the sizes of Liaoning and Shandong, had restricted their air wing. Liaoning could carry a minimum 18 and maximum 24 J-15 fighters and 17 helicopters, while Shandong could contain 32 J-15 fighters and 12 helicopters, respectively.
The larger Fujian, assessed to carry 50-60 fixed-wing aircraft, including J-15T heavy fighters, J-35 ‘stealth’ fighter variants, KJ-600 AEW, and Z-8/Z-20 helicopters, leapfrogged to this energy-efficient, next-generation EMALS.
This enabled the launching of heavier fixed-wing aircraft, with greater fuel and payload, and thereby, deployment of a more diverse air wing, including airborne early warning aircraft (AEW), electronic warfare platforms, and UAVs. The faster pace helps generate higher sortie rates with longer strike ranges.
Incidentally, US President Donald Trump recently pledged to direct the US Navy to abandon EMALS for its future Ford-class carriers and revert to steam-powered catapults, even though the EMALS offers critical operational advantages in context of near-peer warfare.
China’s Carrier Development Path
China had started late as compared to India, whose first aircraft carrier, the 19,500-tonne INS Vikrant, purchased from the UK in 1957, was commissioned in the Indian Navy in 1961. With STOBAR, and operating Sea-Hawk and Alizes, and later the Sea-Harrier aircraft, it participated in the 1961 Goa operations and the 1971 War, and was decommissioned in 1997.
In 1986, the Indian Navy acquired its second aircraft carrier, the 28,700-tonne INS Viraat (erstwhile HMS Hermes). This was decommissioned in 2017. In 2013, the Navy commissioned Russia’s refurbished ‘Admiral Gorshkov’ as INS Vikramaditya.
Also with a STOBAR, it operates a versatile range of over 30 aircraft, such as the MiG-29K fighters, AEW and utility helicopters. In 2022, the Navy commissioned INS Vikrant, an indigenously designed and built carrier. At 45,000 tonnes and a STOBAR, it can carry about 30 aircraft. This year, India signed a deal with France for 26 Rafale Marine jets for INS Vikrant and Vikramaditya. It has plans for another carrier, the 65,000-tonne INS Vishal, likely with a US-supplied EMALS supporting CATOBAR operations (the EMALS haven’t witnessed any progress).
The Korean War (June 1950-July 1953), the First Taiwan Straits Crisis (1954-1955), the Second Taiwan Straits Crisis (1958), China’s deep reliance on maritime routes for resource-access and trade, and the fact that China can be contained by a powerful adversarial navy positioned on the First and Second Island Chains, prompted Admiral Liu Huaqing of the PLAN to propose in 1982 a limited naval component of Active Defence called ‘Offshore Defence’.
He later laid out a comprehensive strategy for the full development of PLAN by 2049 in three phases. The robust US response in the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1995-96) underscored to Beijing the importance of developing a modern navy capable of ‘counter-intervention operations’.
In 1998, China bought the unfinished ‘Varyag’ from Ukraine, reportedly for ‘converting it into a casino’. This Soviet-origin carrier’s construction had stopped after the USSR broke up in 1991. Towed to China in 2002, it was extensively examined, then refitted, and in 2012, commissioned in the PLAN as Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier. Following Liaoning's broad design, China then constructed the Shandong aircraft carrier.
The Fujian, whose construction commenced in 2017, was launched in 2022, and finally commissioned after almost three years of extensive testing and trials. That from start of construction to commissioning, the Shandong took 72 months, and the Fujian, 104 months, is emblematic of China’s technological advancement and institutional learning curves.
US, China and the Indian Ocean
As per the US Pentagon, the PLAN now “is the world’s largest navy with over 370 platforms, including major surface combatants, submarines, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, aircraft carriers, and fleet auxiliaries... This excludes 60 Houbei-class patrol vessels carrying anti-ship cruise missiles...(the) overall battle force is expected to grow to 435 ships by 2030.”
There are strategic connotations to China having more warships than the US Navy, with over 75 percent deemed “modern,” and with plans to build four or five more aircraft carriers, including nuclear-powered ones.
The issue, however, is not straightforward as raw numbers are misleading—the Chinese fleet combined displaces about 1,854,000 tonnes, less than half of the total tonnage of the US Navy, which fields over 9,000 vertical missile launch cells, compared to 1,000 in the PLAN.
An aircraft-carrier by itself is very vulnerable and must be fully integrated with destroyers, frigates, logistic ships, submarines to form a Carrier Battle Group (CBG).
The US Navy operates 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, although all are not deployable on account of training-maintenance-refit cycles. China will now be able to operate three CBGs (two available at any time).
China’s Fujian is estimated to have a range of 8,000 to 10,000 nautical miles, far less than US carriers which can sail virtually for 20-25 years without “re-fuelling”. Besides, the PLAN is assessed to have weaknesses in areas like joint operations with other components of China’s military, anti-submarine warfare, long-range targeting, limited capacity for ‘at-sea replenishment’ of warships—and just one overseas base (at Djibouti). In contrast, the US has about 750 overseas bases.
Thus, overall, the PLAN’s—and the Fujian’s—immediate focus seems to be against rapidly militarising Japan, to delay a US intervention in a Taiwan contingency, and signal projection of power in the broader region, especially the Western Pacific and the India Ocean Region.
However, China could be looking at a larger, sustained, naval presence in the region in the future by further improving its base at Djibouti (the 330-meter-long jetty can accommodate an aircraft carrier). For India, which enjoys a ‘home theatre’ advantage in the Indian Ocean Region, matching China ship-for-ship and carrier-for-carrier may not be the optimal response.
The answer may lie in developing asymmetric capabilities, cogent intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance capacities, a coherent Navy designed with the future in mind and which can synergise the efforts of the other wings of the Indian Armed Forces, and enduring partnerships with other littorals.
(Kuldip Singh is a retired Brigadier from the Indian Army. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)