{"id":276807,"date":"2025-11-07T07:32:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/276807\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T07:32:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:32:21","slug":"fujian-chinas-latest-and-most-high-tech-aircraft-carrier-enters-fleet-as-naval-competition-with-the-us-heats-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/276807\/","title":{"rendered":"Fujian: China\u2019s latest and most high-tech aircraft carrier enters fleet as naval competition with the US heats up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n China\u2019s latest and most capable<\/a> aircraft carrier has officially entered service, a significant step forward for Beijing as it seeks to catch up with the United States<\/a> on naval supremacy.\n <\/p>\n

\n Chinese leader Xi Jinping attended the commissioning ceremony for the Fujian at a military port in Sanya on Hainan island earlier this week, China\u2019s state broadcaster CCTV reported on Friday.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Fujian is China\u2019s third and most advanced aircraft carrier, featuring electromagnetic catapults that can launch three aircraft types, according to Chinese state media.\n <\/p>\n

\n The new tech, known as EMALS, allows planes to take off with heavier weapon and fuel loads, so they can strike enemy targets at greater distances.\n <\/p>\n

\n The only other aircraft carrier in the world that has the EMALS system is the US Navy\u2019s newest carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, which was certified for flight deck operations using the EMALS system in the spring of 2022.\n <\/p>\n

\n The decision to adopt the technology for the Fujian was personally made by Xi, Chinese state media said.\n <\/p>\n

\"Xi<\/p>\n

\n More than 2,000 navy and aircraft carrier construction personnel looked on from stands along the dock as Xi joined an honor guard in a flag ceremony for the commissioning, which took place Wednesday afternoon. The Chinese leader then toured the vessel, including inspecting the mess hall and giving a trial press of the ship\u2019s catapult button, according to CCTV.\n <\/p>\n

\n Three catapult launch positions were \u201cprominently displayed\u201d on the flight deck as well as carrier-based aircraft including China\u2019s J-35, J-15T and KJ-600, CCTV said, while the country\u2019s second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, was positioned on the slip nearby \u2013 bolstering the optics of this latest show of military might.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Fujian was launched in 2022 and began sea trials in 2024. Its official commissioning has been highly anticipated in China, where the country\u2019s rapid military modernization, including the expansion of its navy, has been a deep source of national pride.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Chinese social media Friday, news of the commissioning was a top trending-subject, with a hashtag \u201cMy country\u2019s first electromagnetic catapult-equipped aircraft carrier enters service\u201d racking up more than 10 million views in the space of an hour.\n <\/p>\n

\"Xi<\/p>\n

\n China has built the world\u2019s largest navy, launching high-tech warships at a frenetic pace under Xi\u2019s leadership as the country has become more aggressive<\/a> in asserting territorial claims in the contested South China Sea and increasingly looked to project its naval power in the region and further afield. <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n In terms of sheer number of ships, Beijing\u2019s navy is now bigger than Washington\u2019s and Chinese shipyards can churn out new builds at a far higher rate<\/a>. But the US maintains a significant technological advantage and can field far more aircraft carriers.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nuclear power gives the US carriers the ability to remain at sea for as long as crew provisions last. The Fujian is powered by conventional fuel, meaning it must either make a port call or be met by a tanker at sea to refuel.\n <\/p>\n

\n And despite incorporating the EMALS technology, two former US carrier officers told CNN<\/a> last month that the Fujian\u2019s air operations may still run at only about 60% the rate of a 50-year-old US Navy carrier due to the configuration of the carrier\u2019s flight deck.\n <\/p>\n

\n The carrier is China\u2019s first to forgo the ski jump-style ramp used on the flight decks of the country\u2019s smaller, existing carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, to get aircraft airborne under their own power \u2013 and the vessel have been praised within China as a proof of the country\u2019s emergence as a major aircraft carrier power.\n <\/p>\n

\n Displacing 80,000 tons, it is the closest thing afloat to the US Navy\u2019s 97,000-ton Nimitz-class carriers.\n <\/p>\n

\n And China is already in the process of building another carrier, for now known as the Type 004, which is expected to not only employ EMALS technology, but also \u2013 unlike the Fujian \u2013 be nuclear-powered.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s latest and most capable aircraft carrier has officially entered service, a significant step forward for Beijing as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-276807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}