The Chinese Navy's third aircraft carrier, Fujian, was officially delivered and commissioned on November 5 local time, which has drawn high attention from domestic and foreign media.

In many reports, the new media account "Yuyuantan Tian" of CCTV revealed several key pieces of information:

Firstly, the Fujian will go further than the Liaoning and Shandong, its long-range defense capabilities will be deployed to the East Pacific, Indian Ocean, Atlantic, and the waters near Australia;

Fujian commissioning ceremony

Secondly, the so-called "001", "002", and "003" aircraft carriers are not serial numbers, but model numbers. The 003 type can be considered a mature platform. According to the country's convention of building warships, after optimizing and improving a mature platform, it will enter the mass production stage.

So, how should we view the key information disclosed by "Yuyuantan Tian"?

Firstly, the meaning of the statement that "the Fujian will go further than the Liaoning and Shandong" is easy to understand.

On one hand, since the Liaoning and Shandong use ski-jump takeoff, the carrier-based aircraft cannot take off with full fuel and full weapons, limiting their combat radius. Also, they lack fixed-wing early warning aircraft support, making it difficult for the aircraft carrier group to operate independently without the support of land-based systems. Therefore, the activity range of the Liaoning and Shandong is limited to the Western Pacific as the "far sea" boundary, which is relatively reasonable.

On the other hand, the Liaoning, as China's first aircraft carrier, has always been positioned as a scientific research and training ship, laying the foundation for China's navy's aircraft carrier construction and talent cultivation.

Previously captured by satellite, the Shandong and Fujian

The Shandong, as China's first self-designed and built domestically made aircraft carrier, still had a prototype based on the Liaoning, representing an attempt to build an aircraft carrier independently and verify the technology.

Until the Fujian appeared, China's aircraft carrier construction truly broke through the traditional framework of Russian aircraft carriers, forming an independent technical path and development model.

As the third aircraft carrier built by China, the Fujian uses a flat deck and electromagnetic catapult system, which can greatly improve the efficiency of carrier-based aircraft takeoff, allowing the aircraft to take off from the carrier with full fuel and full weapons.

Additionally, the airborne early warning aircraft, the KJ-600, being on board also expands the aircraft carrier's battlefield awareness range, making the Fujian's "far sea" no longer bound by geographical distance, but rather becoming a dynamic space with its systematized combat capability as the radius.

KJ-600 taking off from the Fujian

Secondly, in the speculation that the 004-type aircraft carrier may have already started construction and may adopt nuclear power, do we still need to continue building the 003-type aircraft carrier?

This needs to consider the strategic pressure faced by China's navy. The greatest advantage of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is its "infinite endurance," but its "disadvantages" are also obvious: the deployment and maintenance costs and time cycle of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are far greater than those of conventional-powered aircraft carriers. For example, the U.S. Nimitz-class aircraft carrier requires 3 to 4 years for a major overhaul, and the recent costs have reached up to $3 billion.

China's current main strategic goal is to ensure absolute control within the "First Island Chain" and effectively prevent external interference. The existing three aircraft carriers of the People's Liberation Army just meet the minimum requirements of the "aircraft carrier three-three system" rotation deployment principle. Therefore, continuing to build conventional-powered aircraft carriers based on the Fujian's technology is undoubtedly a practical choice to quickly form combat capability.

The 003-type aircraft carrier may continue to be built

Moreover, this also conforms to China's military industry development strategy of "small steps and fast running," that is, continuously optimizing and improving on a mature platform, rather than blindly pursuing leapfrog development.

This concept has been perfectly demonstrated in the update and upgrade of the 052 series destroyers. Therefore, the same logic applies to aircraft carrier construction. The successful technical verification of the electromagnetic catapult on the Fujian indicates that subsequent ships can be optimized based on this, such as upgrading the three catapults to four, or increasing the displacement of the aircraft carrier from over 80,000 tons to 100,000 tons, etc.

Certainly, if we choose to continue building conventional-powered aircraft carriers, it does not mean that China has given up its ambition to develop nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Previously, the Chinese Ministry of Defense said, "We have always promoted the development of aircraft carriers according to national security needs and the development of equipment technology."

Original text: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7570194303042077224/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author. Please express your attitude below using the [top/beat] buttons.