Behind Nine Aircraft Carriers: Can China's Naval Shipbuilding Capability Support This Goal?

The Pentagon's 2025 "China Military Power Report" contains a figure that can easily get lost in the vast amount of information: by 2035, China may have 9 aircraft carriers. This is not the first time such a prediction has been made, but what is different this time is the time window—only 9 years left to build 6 new carriers.

As a long-time observer of China's military industry, my first reaction is not "What is China going to do?" but rather "Can China do it?" Because aircraft carrier construction is never just a shipyard issue; it tests the entire country's industrial system.

## A Decade from "Liaoning" to "Fujian"

When the "Liaoning" was commissioned in 2012, the outside world generally regarded it as a training ship. The first domestically produced aircraft carrier, the "Shandong," was launched in 2017, adopting the same ski-jump takeoff design as the "Liaoning." By 2022, when the "Fujian" was launched, China had truly entered the catapult takeoff (CATOBAR) aircraft carrier club.

What does this timeline indicate? It shows that China has been able to deliver an aircraft carrier every 3-4 years on average over the past decade. The Pentagon's prediction means that in the next 9 years, 6 carriers need to be delivered, requiring production capacity to more than double.

More critically, the "Fujian" uses an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which is an entirely new technological platform. This system was jointly developed by China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and related research institutes, and while it is similar in principle to the system used on the U.S. Ford-class carriers, its reliability and maturity still need time for validation. The "Fujian" will only be commissioned in 2025, and real combat testing has just begun.

According to the normal technology maturity curve, a new type of equipment typically requires a verification period of 3-5 years from the commissioning of the first ship to mass production. However, if 6 new carriers are to be built before 2035, the "Fujian" has at most only 2-3 years for validation.

## The Nuclear Power Dilemma

The Pentagon's report specifically mentions that the future Type 004 carriers may use nuclear power. This is a reasonable speculation—nuclear-powered carriers are not limited by fuel supply and can maintain a continuous presence in distant seas, which is crucial for China to contend with the United States in the Indo-Pacific region.

However, the technical difficulty of nuclear-powered carriers is far greater than that of conventional power. Since the commissioning of the "Enterprise" in 1961, the U.S. has built 11 nuclear-powered carriers, accumulating over 60 years of experience. France's "Charles de Gaulle" is the only non-U.S. nuclear-powered carrier, but it has faced numerous issues and was once dubbed "the nightmare of the French Navy."

China has a certain foundation in naval nuclear reactors—the Type 094 strategic nuclear submarines have been in service for many years—but submarine reactors and carrier reactors are two completely different systems. Carriers require reactors with greater power (typically between 200-280 megawatts) and have higher demands for reliability and maintainability.

It is understood that China has already constructed a prototype of a naval nuclear reactor for testing on land, but there is still a long way to go from prototype to actual shipboard equipment. If the Type 004 does indeed use nuclear power, the first ship may not be commissioned until the early 2030s.

## Shipyard Capacity Bottleneck

Even if the technical issues can be resolved, there is a more practical obstacle: the shipyards.

Currently, China has only two shipyards capable of building large aircraft carriers: Dalian Shipbuilding Industry and Jiangnan Shipyard. Jiangnan Shipyard is responsible for the "Fujian" and the Type 055 large destroyers, while Dalian Shipbuilding Industry built the "Shandong."

With a construction cycle of 5-7 years for an aircraft carrier (from start to delivery), the two shipyards can theoretically only start one carrier per year. To build 6 carriers in 9 years, they must achieve:

1. **Shorten the construction cycle to under 4 years**—this requires large-scale use of modular construction and pre-outfitting technology, which has already been validated on the Type 055 destroyers. The construction cycle for the Type 055 has been compressed from 5 years for the first ship to about 3 years for the eighth ship.

2. **Expand or build new dry docks**—Jiangnan Shipyard underwent large-scale expansion around 2020, and the newly added super-large dry dock can theoretically build two aircraft carrier-sized ships simultaneously.

3. **Comprehensive upgrade of the supply chain**—aircraft carrier construction involves thousands of suppliers, from special steel to avionics systems, and every link in the chain must be reliable.

It is worth noting that China has already demonstrated remarkable mass production capabilities with the Type 052D destroyers—over 30 ships have been built or are under construction since 2014. This "mass production" model is backed by a highly mature supply chain and standardized processes. If this model can be replicated in aircraft carrier construction, 9 carriers may not be impossible.

## The Challenge of Carrier-Based Aircraft

The aircraft carrier itself is just a platform; the real combat power comes from the carrier-based aircraft. The Pentagon predicts that future Chinese carriers will be equipped with J-35 stealth fighters, J-15T fighters, KJ-600 early warning aircraft, helicopters, and drones.

There is a key issue here: production capacity. If all 9 carriers are equipped to the standard of the "Fujian," each carrying about 50 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, that would require approximately 450 carrier-based aircraft. Even considering rotation and training needs, the total demand may exceed 600 aircraft.

The J-35 has just begun mass production, and the KJ-600 is still in the flight testing phase. To produce 600 carrier-based aircraft before 2035, an average of 60-70 aircraft must be delivered each year, which poses a significant challenge for Shenyang Aircraft Corporation and Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Corporation—especially as they also need to produce land-based aircraft like the J-20 and J-16.

From publicly available information, Shenyang has undertaken large-scale factory expansions and production line upgrades between 2020 and 2024, increasing annual production capacity from 20-30 aircraft to over 50. However, to support 9 carriers, this capacity still needs to continue expanding.

## Strategic Intent or Technological Showcase?

Returning to the initial question: Why does China want to build 9 aircraft carriers?

From a strategic perspective, 9 carriers would allow China to maintain a presence in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Western Pacific simultaneously, posing a real challenge to the U.S. Navy. Following the "one-third rule" (one-third in port for maintenance, one-third in training, one-third deployed), 9 carriers mean that at any time, 3 would be in a state of readiness.

However, from an industrial perspective, this seems more like a test of a "capability ceiling." China's shipbuilding industry has already captured over 50% of the global market share in the civilian sector, and military shipbuilding has also demonstrated remarkable scalability. 9 carriers may represent the limit that China's shipbuilding industry can achieve based on current technology and production capacity.

## The Real Question is Not "Can They?" but "Is It Worth It?"

Technically, China could potentially build 9 aircraft carriers before 2035—provided that nuclear power technology matures, the supply chain remains intact, and carrier-based aircraft production keeps pace. But the more pressing question is: In an era where drones, hypersonic missiles, and anti-ship ballistic missiles are rapidly developing, does the strategic value of large platforms like aircraft carriers still hold into the 2040s?

The U.S. Navy has already begun discussing the concept of "distributed maritime operations," emphasizing the use of more small, unmanned platforms to replace a few large vessels. While China is making large-scale investments in aircraft carriers, is it also preparing for the next generation of naval warfare? This question may be more worthy of attention than the 9 aircraft carriers themselves.