The Chinese navy's third and most advanced aircraft carrier, CNS Fujian, was put to sea for the fourth time on Tuesday to conduct a new round of sea trials after it was launched two years ago.
Named for the province of Fujian in southeast China, the carrier sailed from Shanghai's Jiangnan Shipyard, where it was built, photos circulating on social media showed. At least two carrier-based aircraft and multiple containers with windows were placed on the flat-top flight deck.
The Fujian, completely designed and built by China, was launched on June 17, 2022, at Jiangnan Shipyard. It is the first Chinese aircraft carrier that uses catapults for aircraft takeoffs. A ski-jump takeoff ramp was installed for the first ship, CNS Liaoning, and the second ship, CNS Shandong.
The yet-to-be-commissioned warship is the largest among the three, with a displacement of more than 80,000 tons in full load, while the Liaoning and the Shandong are 60,000 to 70,000 tons. In comparison, the United States Navy's aircraft carriers—with 11 in service—are 100,000 tons.
The Fujian features an electromagnetic catapult system similar to the U.S. Navy's Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers. It is the second in the world, after the USS Gerald R. Ford, to possess such technology. But the Fujian has three launch tracks compared to the Gerald R. Ford's four.
The length of the Fujian's tests has been increasing and at short intervals, indicating positive results each time, observers noted. The maiden sea trial lasted eight days in early May, while the second was conducted for 20 days from May into June.
The third trial, from July 3 to 28, was the longest to date. During the last round of trials in the Bohai Bay, an aircraft was on a landing course behind the Fujian, which suggested the carrier conducted flight testing, according to open-source satellite imagery.
Meanwhile, the maritime authority of the northeastern coastal province of Liaoning on Tuesday issued a navigational warning, which established a restricted area for "military activity" in the northern Yellow Sea. This would be used by the Fujian during its fourth trial, observers said.
The Chinese military did not announce the beginning of the trial, but a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry said on July 25 that the relevant follow-up tests of the Fujian "will be carried out based on the process of its construction," which was described as a regular arrangement.
In a separate development of the Chinese "flat-top" fleet, the Soviet-built Liaoning was spotted sailing in the Bohai Sea, according to open-source satellite imagery captured on Monday. It was moored pierside at its Qingdao home port, a city in the eastern province of Shandong, as of last week.
On August 29, satellite imagery showed the Shandong, which is the country's first domestically built aircraft carrier, docked at its home port in Sanya on the southern island province of Hainan.
China has the world's second-largest aircraft carrier fleet, and it has been deployed beyond the so-called first island chain, which extends southward from Japan to Taiwan and the Philippines. The U.S. and its allies attempt to use it to limit China's naval activities in any potential future conflict.
According to Newsweek's weekly update on U.S. and Chinese aircraft carrier movements in the Pacific Ocean, the Shandong and three other warships operated in the Philippine Sea on August 12, in the waters near Taiwan and the Philippines. They returned from the area the next day.
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