Nearly three decades ago, when China bought an engine-less former Soviet aircraft carrier, Varyag, later christened the Liaoning, the world sat up and took notice, only to dismiss the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) as a brown water navy that had lots of catching up to do.
Fast-forward to 2025, and the Chinese Navy has caught up. Not only is it gaining numerical supremacy over the US Navy, but it is also fast becoming the world’s second-largest operator of aircraft carriers.
Its latest carrier is nuclear-powered and rivals the American carriers in terms of size and capabilities.
Aircraft carriers are symbols of military power and a country’s capability to project power beyond its borders. China has three aircraft carriers: the Soviet–vintage Liaoning, the indigenously built Shandong, and Fujian. Fujian is approaching operationalization and has impressed experts with its size, but it lacks nuclear propulsion.
Now, China is on its way to build its fourth aircraft carrier.
The satellite images of the prototype of China’s fourth aircraft carrier, designated as Type 004, show that it will have nuclear propulsion and be comparable in size to America’s biggest warship.
The aircraft carrier currently under construction at the Dalian shipyard is touted as a next-generation vessel that will allow fighter jets to be launched from four parts of the flight deck. American analysts suggest that this indicates a new ship design that has not been seen in Chinese warships so far.
The US Navy’s 11 supercarriers can launch aircraft from four places. So far, the three Chinese aircraft carriers can launch jets from only three parts – from the front, center, and deck. The 80,000-ton Fujian is the largest and the latest aircraft carrier in PLA-N’s fleet.
Designated as a Type 003, Fujian has three electromagnetic catapult launching systems to propel fighter jets. China’s indigenously developed Fujian aircraft carrier is only the second in the world to feature electromagnetic catapults, which will enable the PLAN to launch heavier and larger fixed-wing aircraft with more fuel and weapons loads.
China might have started training its military pilots to fly the futuristic ‘eye in the sky,’ the KJ-600 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft from Fujian.
Despite Fujian’s sophistication, Type 004 is considered a technological leap for the Chinese Navy. The new carrier, with its four catapults, would allow more planes to take off, and its air power would match that of the US Navy’s largest and most advanced carriers, like the USS Gerald R. Ford. To support four catapults, the size of the aircraft carrier will have to be larger than Fujian.
Expert-analyzed satellite images of China’s Dalian shipbuilding facility indicate that work on the actual aircraft carrier has yet to start. The images accessed by NBC News depict an engineering prototype of a module with two tracks, or trenches, which are said to be related to catapults.
Unlike the American supercarriers that have four electromagnetic catapults with two parallel tracks running on the bow and at the center, the two tracks seen in the satellite images of China’s prototypes converge at angles. Analysts attribute the convergence of tracks to space constraints on carriers.
The prototype is also seen as a testing ground for electromagnetic catapults, to ensure that the magnetic fields of the converging catapults don’t interfere with each other.
Electromagnetic catapults use large magnets to launch an aircraft. The Fujian also has two electromagnetic catapults on the bow. However, these two catapults are far apart and have less chance of their magnetic fields interfering with each other.
China’s Nuclear-Powered Navy
China’s aircraft carrier program has advanced from purchasing and researching foreign carriers to creating its own designs. China bought the decommissioned HMAS Melbourne from Australia in 1985 and used its landing system and steam catapult for study.
China purchased decommissioned Soviet carriers, such as the Minsk, Kiev, and Varyag, in the 1990s and early 2000s. The latter underwent upgrades before being put into service as China’s first operational carrier, the Liaoning (Type 001), in 2012.
Launched in 2017 and put into service in 2019, the Shandong (Type 002) was the first carrier built in the country and has a Liaoning-like ski-jump launch system. Although the 2022-launched Fujian (Type 003) included electromagnetic catapults (EMALS), it was still conventionally powered and needed to be refueled for prolonged use.
China has not openly revealed its plans to build a Type 004 aircraft carrier.
Satellite imagery from November 2024, showed that China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship. Nuclear-powered carriers would place China in the exclusive ranks of first-class naval powers, a group currently limited to the United States and France. The project to build the prototype reactor for a large warship is called Longwei or Dragon Might.
Rumors have long circulated that China intends to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California was the first to confirm that Beijing is indeed working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship.
Constructing and deploying a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is time-intensive. However, the capability to develop nuclear propulsion for its next generation of warships would give China more power to run advanced systems, such as electromagnetic launchers, radars, and new-technology weapons. It would also obviate the need for the ship to refuel regularly, thus increasing its range.
The PLA Navy is already the world’s largest navy, with more than 370 ships and submarines. The country also boasts powerful shipbuilding capabilities: China’s shipyards are building hundreds of vessels each year, whereas the US is building five or fewer, according to a US congressional report in 2023.
The Chinese navy is, however, lagging behind the US Navy in many areas. The primary reason is that the US has 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, enabling its multiple strike groups to be deployed around the world at all times, including the Indo-Pacific.
Although the Pentagon does not specifically identify the Type 004 in its most recent evaluation of Chinese military might, it does note that the PLAN is “in the beginning stages of operating its multi-carrier force.”
Additionally, it states that the Fujian is only the first warship in the “next generation of carriers,” which will be distinguished by “an electromagnetic catapult launch system and greater endurance, making them capable of launching various types of specialized fixed-wing aircraft for missions, such as airborne early warning and electronic warfare.” When deployed to regions beyond China’s immediate periphery, this will boost a possible PLAN carrier battle group’s striking capability.
