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Chinese aircraft carrier programme

Updated: 11/6/2025, 1:07:32 AM Wikipedia source

As of 2025, the People's Republic of China has two active aircraft carriers in the Surface Force of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), namely the Liaoning and Shandong, with a third carrier Fujian currently undergoing sea trials. A fourth carrier, currently called "Type 004" and thought to feature nuclear propulsion, has been under construction since 2024. Wang Yunfei, a retired PLA Navy officer, and other naval experts projected in 2018/2019 that China might possess five or six aircraft carriers by the 2030s. Aircraft carriers have long been an essential component of PLAN's ambition of becoming a blue-water navy, and China had attempted to acquire and study aircraft carriers since the 1970s. In the years after 1985, China acquired four retired aircraft carriers for research and reverse-engineering, namely the British-built Australian light carrier HMAS Melbourne and the ex-Soviet "aircraft-carrying cruisers" Minsk, Kiev and Varyag. The Varyag, which use a ski-jump flight deck for STOBAR operations, later underwent an extensive refit to be converted into the Liaoning, China's first operational aircraft carrier, which also served as a basis for China's subsequent design iterations in its indigenously built sister ship Shandong. The third carrier Fujian uses an indigenously developed electromagnetic catapult system for CATOBAR operations.

Tables

· List of carriers
Liaoning
Liaoning
Hull number
16
Name
Liaoning
Class
Type 001
Builder
Nikolayev Shipyard (Hull) Dalian Shipyard (Refit)
Launched
4 December 1988
Commissioned
September 2012
Home port
Yuchi Naval Base
Status
Active
Shandong
Shandong
Hull number
17
Name
Shandong
Class
Type 002
Builder
Dalian Shipyard
Launched
26 April 2017
Commissioned
December 2019
Home port
Yulin Naval Base
Status
Active
Fujian
Fujian
Hull number
18
Name
Fujian
Class
Type 003
Builder
Jiangnan Shipyard
Launched
17 June 2022
Status
Sea trials
Hull number
Name
Class
Builder
Launched
Commissioned
Home port
Status
16
Liaoning
Type 001
Nikolayev Shipyard (Hull) Dalian Shipyard (Refit)
4 December 1988
September 2012
Yuchi Naval Base
Active
17
Shandong
Type 002
Dalian Shipyard
26 April 2017
December 2019
Yulin Naval Base
Active
18
Fujian
Type 003
Jiangnan Shipyard
17 June 2022
Sea trials
Type 004
Dalian Shipyard
Under construction

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