China’s Fujian aircraft carrier spotted in new position, bringing it a step closer to sea trial, analysts say

PLA’s most advanced carrier is shown metres from usual berthing place in satellite images, and it appears to launch object in unverified video
Aircraft carriers are expected to play key role in strategy for potential Taiwan attack and are part of Chinese navy’s goal to operate in open sea

China’s military

Jack Lau

Published: 8:29pm, 27 Nov 2023

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China’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, has moved dozens of metres from its usual berthing place in what analysts say could be a sign the warship is moving towards a sea trial.

The country’s third carrier moved around 27 metres (89 feet) from the quay in the Jiangnan shipyard in Shanghai on November 19, then returned to its normal position within two days, according to imagery from the Sentinel-2 satellite operated by the European Space Agency.

Aircraft carriers are a part of the Chinese navy’s goal to operate in the open sea. Military exercises show they would also play a key role in any strategy for an attack on Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own and has vowed to unite with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary.

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The Fujian is China’s first carrier to be equipped with electromagnetic catapults to launch planes from its deck. Its two aircraft carriers in operation, the Liaoning and the Shandong, use ski-jump take-off ramps instead.

With this technological advancement, the People’s Liberation Army leapfrogged the less power-efficient steam catapults used by the US Navy’s Nimitz-class carriers that began operating in the 1970s.

On Sunday, undated video clips began circulating on social media platform Weibo that apparently showed the Fujian launching an object into the basin where it was berthed in what could be a dead-load test. The test involves launching a wheeled vehicle with the mass of an aircraft to emulate a plane taking off.

The clips show a water splash in front of the Fujian’s bow, but not a vehicle leaving the flight deck. The authenticity of the clip cannot be verified, but passengers on commercial planes have been known to take videos of the Fujian as their planes leave or approach the nearby Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

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What is known about the Fujian, China’s first home-designed aircraft carrier

H.I. Sutton, a naval analyst who was the first to notice the Fujian being moved by tugs, said on his website that this could indicate the vessel was a step closer to sea trials.

Sea trials test how well a ship’s systems and components operate and such trials for the Fujian are likely to take more than a year.

Song Zhongping, a former PLA instructor, said the Fujian could have been moved away from the quay to launch the test vehicles.

“Catapulting the small vehicle itself is a step in the testing of the aircraft carrier for sea trials,” he said. “I don’t know if the video is real, but this is something that needs to be done eventually.”

He pointed to signs such as the berthing of the Fujian’s support ship, the Lidaoyuan, behind the Fujian in the Jiangnan shipyard since March as indicators that sea trials would start soon.

The covers protecting the three electromagnetic catapults were removed from June to October. Photos circulating on Chinese social media also showed smoke coming out of the Fujian’s chimney in September.

‘Substantial threat’ from PLA’s Fujian carrier: Taiwanese defence ministry

The Fujian, a 316-metre supercarrier, was launched in June 2022.

According to analysts, aircraft carriers could be used to block foreign forces from aiding Taiwan from the east, including US forces based in Guam and Japan’s Okinawa.

In April, the self-ruled island’s defence ministry said it had detected the PLA’s J-15 fighter jets for the first time during a major drill targeting Taiwan, which was part of Beijing’s response to a meeting between former US House speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California.

Because J-15 jets are designed to be carrier-borne, their presence in the east of Taiwan suggested that they had taken off from the PLA’s Shandong aircraft carrier, which was positioned nearby.

The PLA has developed a variant, the J-15T, to be used with catapults.