Matthew Funaiole, senior scientist at China’s CSIS project, previously told CNN that the new ship will be the Chinese military’s first modern aircraft carrier.

“This is a pretty significant step forward,” he said. “They have really made a commitment to building an air carrier program and continue to push the boundaries of what they can do.”

The ruling Communist Party of China claims sovereignty over Taiwan’s self-governing democracy, despite never having ruled it. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly declared the inevitability of “reunification” of China and Taiwan and refused to rule out the use of force.

Currently, China has the largest navy in the world, and aircraft carriers are the main ships of the fleet of any major power. Massive ships, in fact, are a mobile air base that allows you to quickly and for a long time transfer aircraft and weapons to the theater of operations.

Maritime rivalry

China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was an unfinished Soviet-era ship that Beijing bought from Ukraine in 1998, upgraded, and finally commissioned in 2012.

The Chinese military used the technological knowledge gained on the ship to build its first domestic aircraft carrier, the Shandong, which entered service in December 2019.

But while China’s original two aircraft carriers added to its naval power, their capabilities still lagged far behind America’s, which has a total of 11 ships in service.

In addition, both Liaoning and Shandong were based on outdated Soviet technology. These two carriers used a ski-jump launch system in which aircraft simply took off from a small ramp, while US carriers use a more advanced ejection system to launch their aircraft.

Catapult-launched aircraft can take to the air faster and with more fuel and ammunition, giving them an advantage over jump-launched aircraft that rely on their own power to take off.

However, despite the advanced launch system, CSIS’s Funaiole said there are still signs that the Chinese aircraft carrier is lagging behind its American counterparts, which have more catapults, more airways and more elevators, allowing faster aircraft deployment.

All U.S. aircraft carriers are also nuclear-powered, while Fujian is believed to run on conventional steam power, which Funaiole said would limit its reach. “(Although) this may be less of a factor for China now, as many of its interests are in the near sea,” he said.

Once launched, Fujian will need to be tested and fully equipped before it is ready for commissioning and official commissioning.

The US Department of Defense originally expected the aircraft carrier to be ready for active service by 2023, but has now pushed that date back to 2024.

The Shandong aircraft carrier also took two years from launch in 2017 to its final commissioning in 2019.

Even the US has had difficulty using the same system on its latest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, resulting in long deployment delays.