China's new aircraft carrier is being tested at sea for the first time, but US carriers 'remain in an echelon of their own,' expert says
Li Tang/VCG via Getty Images
- China has tested its newest aircraft carrier for the first time at sea, according to Chinese media.
- The Fujian is China's most advanced carrier and has a catapult system, unlike its predecessors.
- But it falls far short of the standards of US Navy carriers, a military analyst told CNN.
China launched the first sea trial of its newest aircraft carrier on Wednesday, per the state-run news agency Xinhua.
Fujian, the country's third and most advanced aircraft carrier, left Shanghai's shipyard at around 8 a.m. local time for trials primarily meant to assess the reliability and stability of its propulsion and electrical systems, per the news agency.
It's a major step, with the People's Liberation Army Navy reportedly looking to put its largest, most advanced carrier through sea trials for months.
However, according to John Bradford, a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs fellow, the Fujian falls far short of US aircraft carrier standards.
While Bradford acknowledged the Fujian's sea trials as a key "milestone" for the Chinese navy, he told CNN that US carriers "remain in an echelon of their own."
Richard Kouyoumdjian Inglis, a Lieutenant Commander in the Chilean Naval Reserve, backed this up.
"There is nothing yet that compares to the USS carriers," he told Business Insider.
The Fujian was previously pictured on social media, with images showing the vessel docked in Shanghai and its flight deck complete with five mock-ups of warplanes.
Unlike China's two other carriers, the Liaoning and Shandong, the Fujian features a catapult system designed to launch aircraft, according to reports, much like US aircraft carriers.
The ship is also closer in size and flight deck configuration to US Navy carriers but falls short of them, per a report by the Congressional Research Service.
At the same time, the Fujian is conventionally powered, meaning it must either call at a port or be met by a tanker at sea to refill. In contrast, US nuclear-powered carriers can remain at sea for as long as crew provisions last, per a 2021 analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Based on satellite images of the ship from 2021, the CSIS estimated the carrier to be about 984 feet long and about 131 feet wide, making it smaller than the USS Gerald Ford Class, which is 1,092 feet long and 1,106 feet wide.
The Fujian has three electromagnetic catapults, per Defense News, one fewer than the USS Gerald Ford Class, per Naval News.
In terms of aircraft capacity, Fujian can take on about 60 aircraft, while the largest US carriers can host about 75, per estimates by the CSIS, cited by CNN.
Business Insider previously reported that China's two other aircraft carriers — the Liaoning and Shandong — had outdated Soviet-era designs and smaller air wings, making them notably inferior to US carriers.