News update
The Fujian is considered a symbol of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s overhaul and rapid expansion of China’s military.
China’s latest aircraft carrier has officially entered service after extensive sea trials, according to Chinese state media, with experts saying the ship will help the world’s largest navy expand Beijing’s sphere of influence farther beyond its own waters.
President Xi Jinping boarded the carrier Fujian – named after the Chinese province facing Taiwan – for an inspection tour in the city of Sanya in southern Hainan province on Wednesday, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.
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More than 2,000 representatives from China’s navy and aircraft carrier construction units attended the commissioning and flag-presenting ceremony, according to state media.
The Fujian is China’s third aircraft carrier, but its first indigenously designed and built model.
The vessel looks set to be a far more effective naval weapon than China’s first two Russian-designed carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, which are smaller and rely on ramps to launch aircraft.
With a flat flight deck and electromagnetic catapults for take-offs – only found elsewhere on the latest United States Navy Ford-class carriers – the Fujian will be able to carry significantly more and heavier-armed jet fighters.
During the Fujian’s sea trials, the Chinese navy launched its new carrier version of the J-35 stealth fighter and an early-warning aircraft, the KJ-600, as well as a variant of its established J-15 fighter jet.
The ability to carry its own reconnaissance aircraft also means that, unlike the Liaoning and Shandong, the Fujian will not be operating blind when out of the range of land-based support, allowing it to operate its most advanced aircraft further afield.
It remains to be seen how quickly the Fujian will become combat-ready, but the vessel is perhaps the most visible example yet of President Xi’s deep overhaul and rapid expansion of China’s military.
The Chinese leader has previously said his goal is for China to have a modernised military force by 2035 and a “world-class” force to rival the US by 2050. With the Fujian, Beijing has taken another significant step towards closing that gap.
Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Associated Press news agency that aircraft “carriers are key to Chinese leadership’s vision of China as a great power with a blue-water navy”.
While China’s navy wishes to dominate the waters of the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea – the so-called First Island Chain around Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines – it also seeks to challenge US dominance deeper into the Pacific, according to Poling.
“A carrier doesn’t really help you in the First Island Chain, but it’s key to that contest, if you want one, with the Americans in the wider Indo-Pacific,” he said.
