4 Construction of a third, and likely more advanced, aircraft carrier-the Type 002-is presently underway at the Jiangnan Shipyard with an unknown estimated date of completion.
1 After the first successful launches and recoveries of a J-15 fighter from the deck of the Liaoning in November 2012, China officially became, “only the fifth country in the world to have conventional takeoff and landing fighters aboard an aircraft carrier.” 2 Jiang Zemin, Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party from 1989 to 2002, formally set China on the path to building aircraft carriers when he directed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to “place the construction of the Naval Air Force in an important strategic position.” 3 China then commissioned the domestically produced Shandong in 2019, modeled after the Liaoning, after completing initial sea trials in 2017–18.
In September 2012, China commissioned the Liaoning, an ex-Soviet ship acquired from Ukraine named the Varyag, and eagerly began the complex learning process of conducting flight operations at sea. Indigenously produced aircraft carriers are an important component of Chinese military modernization efforts, and China clearly values the capability an aircraft carrier brings to its national security and military strategies.
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