The People's Liberation Army Navy has commissioned its latest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, following extensive sea trials. The Chinese claim the ship will help what is already the world's largest navy expand its power farther beyond its own waters, particularly to the Second Island Chain, which includes the U.S. military facility in Guam.
According to Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a carrier is "key to that contest, if you want one, with the Americans in the wider Indo-Pacific."
The Associated Press says the ship is perhaps the most visible example so far of Xi Jinping's military overhaul and expansion that aims to have a modernized force by 2035 and one that is "world class" by the middle of the century.
Commander Kirk Lippold is among those who take that to mean capable of going toe-to-toe with the United States.
"China's doing exactly what they have laid out in their strategic plan to do, and that is to challenge the United States in the Indo-Pacific region and eventually dominate that region militarily," he tells AFN. "They're going to, with a single-minded purpose, try to push the United States out of that area and control that part of the world.
He says that will be to the detriment of Japan, Australia, South Korea, and other U.S. allies.
The Fujian reportedly skips past the steam catapult technology used on most American carriers with an electromagnetic launch system found only on the latest U.S. Navy Ford-class carriers.
The ability to carry its own reconnaissance aircraft means China will no longer be operating blind when out of the range of land-based support, giving it the ability to operate its most advanced aircraft far afield.
But unlike America's, the Chinese carriers are not nuclear powered.
"When you've got diesel powered, you're going to be limited in range, and it requires a great deal of support to be able to do that," Lippold acknowledges. "You're not going to have the power projection capability that U.S. aircraft carriers have with nuclear capability and the ability to carry a much larger air wing on board the ship that is more varied and can carry out more defensive and offensive missions."
The Fujian will be China's third carrier and the first the nation has built and designed itself. Its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was Soviet made, and its second, the Shandong, was built in China but based on the Soviet model. Both use older-style ski-jump type systems to help planes take flight.
