China's Carriers: What the PLAN's Flatdecks Can and Cannot Do in a Taiwan Scenario
China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, underwent sea trials beginning in 2023 and has been advancing toward operational status. It is the first Chinese carrier equipped with electromagnetic aircraft launch system catapults — the same technology used on the American Gerald R. Ford class — which allows it to launch heavier aircraft with greater frequency than the ski-jump launch systems on China’s first two carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong. The Fujian represents a genuine capability advance that brings Chinese carrier aviation meaningfully closer to the operational model that American carriers have perfected over decades. It does not bring the PLAN to American carrier aviation parity, and its operational utility in a Taiwan contingency is less straightforward than its physical characteristics suggest.
The immediate challenge for Chinese carrier aviation is the same challenge that any new carrier force faces: building the operational experience to use the platform effectively. American carrier aviation is the product of eight decades of continuous operational experience, accumulated tactical knowledge, and training pipelines that produce pilots, air traffic controllers, and carrier air wing coordinators who have grown up in a culture of sustained carrier operations. China is building this experience now, deliberately and systematically, but it cannot be accelerated past the timescale that genuine operational learning requires. Chinese carrier pilots flying off the Fujian in 2026 are less experienced than their American counterparts by a margin that capital investment cannot close quickly.
The specific question of Chinese carrier utility in a Taiwan contingency produces a counterintuitive answer. The Taiwan Strait and its approaches are among the most densely contested maritime areas on earth in a conflict scenario. The same anti-ship missile systems that the PLA has used to threaten American carriers in the strait approaches — and that have driven American carrier operations further from the strait — are present in the Taiwanese and American arsenals facing any Chinese carrier that operates in or near the strait. A Chinese carrier operating close enough to the strait to provide meaningful close air support to operations there is within range of Taiwanese Hsiung Feng missiles, American anti-ship systems, and the weapons on the American submarines that would be operating in the region.
The operational concept for Chinese carriers in a Taiwan contingency is more likely to involve operations in the Philippine Sea east of Taiwan — providing a second front, threatening American and Japanese forces approaching from the Pacific, and establishing a maritime exclusion zone on Taiwan’s eastern approaches — than direct participation in the western strait operations. This is a meaningful capability, and it is one that the previous two carriers could only partially provide given their ski-jump launch limitation on aircraft payload. The Fujian, able to launch the PL-15-equipped J-15T at full combat radius and weapons load, can threaten American surface forces at ranges that the Liaoning and Shandong cannot match.
The carrier program’s most important strategic purpose is not its immediate tactical contribution to a Taiwan scenario. It is the demonstration of Chinese intent to build a global navy capable of projecting power beyond the near seas. Carriers are the most visible symbol of great power naval status, and China’s decision to build them — at considerable cost and complexity — communicates a strategic ambition that extends beyond the Taiwan question. A China with a functioning carrier fleet capable of sustained operations can complicate American strategic planning globally, not just in the western Pacific. The Taiwan scenario is the immediate application. The global power projection ambition is the ultimate purpose.
China is building the experience to use its carriers effectively. The Fujian will eventually be as capable as its hardware implies. That timeline is measured in years, not months.