The state-of-the-art Fujian is within the last phases of testing earlier than it formally begins lively service in China’s navy.
Printed On 12 Sep 2025
China’s newest aircraft carrier transited by the Taiwan Strait as a part of a analysis and coaching train earlier than its entry into service, in response to the Individuals’s Liberation Military Navy (PLAN).
PLAN spokesperson Senior Captain Leng Guowei stated on Friday that the Fujian was certain for the South China Sea, the place it is going to endure testing.
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“The cross-regional exams and coaching are a routine mission of the service’s development course of and don’t goal any particular objects,” Leng stated, in response to Chinese language state media.
The 80,000-tonne Fujian has not been formally commissioned for service, however it is going to quickly be a part of the Liaoning and Shandong vessels as China’s third and most superior plane service.
Fu Qianshao, a Chinese language navy affairs skilled, instructed China’s State-run information outlet International Occasions that the Fujian’s analysis journey to the South China Sea is an indication the plane service is sort of full. It earlier underwent exams within the East China Sea and Yellow Sea.
The Fujian’s route was not surprising, as Chinese language state media shared images and movies of the plane service leaving Shanghai’s shipyard on Wednesday.
A step ahead for China’s blue water navy.
🇨🇳China’s third plane service, the Fujian passes by Taiwan Straits to carry exams, coaching in #SouthChinaSea.
By the way in which, the Taiwan Strait will not be ‘worldwide waters’.
The Fujian is China’s first absolutely domestically… pic.twitter.com/3ffANYEbMH
— Shen Shiwei 沈诗伟 (@shen_shiwei) September 12, 2025
Japan’s Maritime Self-Protection Pressure on Thursday noticed the Fujian crusing close to the disputed however uninhabited Senkaku Islands, within the course of the Taiwan Strait, accompanied by two PLAN destroyers.
The Senkaku Islands are referred to as the Diaoyu Islands in China and the Diaoyutai Islands in Taiwan.
The Fujian is simply the second plane service on the earth, after the USS Gerald Ford, to host an electromagnetic catapult system that makes it simpler for plane to take off and land.
Growing such a launch system is an indication that the know-how hole between China and the US is closing, in response to maritime skilled and former United States Air Pressure Colonel Ray Powell, however there are nonetheless some limitations.
The Fujian is 20 p.c smaller than US tremendous plane carriers and conventionally powered quite than nuclear-powered, Powell stated.
The actual problem for China, Powell instructed Al Jazeera, will likely be crewing its plane carriers because the PLAN might want to divide veteran crew members between the three carriers: Fujian, Liaoning and Shandong.
“China is closing the {hardware} hole, however growing the operational experience for efficient blue-water service ops is what the US has spent almost a century perfecting,” he stated.
Whereas no date has been introduced but for the Fujian’s official fee into lively service, the US Naval Institute (USNI) stated it’s anticipated to “coincide with a date that holds historic significance to China”.
Potential dates embrace September 18, the anniversary of Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria, or China’s October 1 nationwide vacation, the USNI stated.
