Satellites Spot China’s Most Advanced Aircraft Carrier at Sea

China’s most advanced aircraft carrier, CNS Fujian, which has yet to be commissioned, was spotted on Thursday sailing toward the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy confirmed on Friday that the Fujian had departed for a “scientific research, test and training mission” in the South China Sea, which is among the world’s most important water bodies for maritime trade and where Beijing contests disputed territories with about half a dozen neighboring claimants.

Newsweek has also reached out to China’s Foreign Ministry for comment via email.

Why It Matters

China operates the world’s largest navy by hull count, with over 370 operational ships and submarines, including two aircraft carriers, the CNS Liaoning and the CNS Shandong, which carried out a rare dual aircraft carrier operation together in the Western Pacific in June.

The 80,000-ton Fujian—claimed to be the largest naval vessel ever built by an Asian nation—features electromagnetic catapults, similar to those on the U.S. Navy’s Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, for launching larger jets. This makes it more advanced than the Liaoning and the Shandong, which use ski-jump flight decks.

Prior to its transit toward the South China Sea, the Fujian has conducted eight sea trials since its launch in June 2022, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. China has not announced a commissioning date, and the Pentagon previously assessed that the Fujian “is expected to be operational in the first half of 2025.”

What To Know

An image captured on Thursday by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites, and reviewed by Newsweek, showed the Fujian sailing southward in the East China Sea with two other naval vessels ahead of it.

According to @MT_Anderson, an open-source intelligence analyst on the social media platform X, the Chinese vessels were approximately 144 miles north of Taiwan.

The presence of the Chinese navy was also confirmed by Japan’s Defense Ministry, which said the vessels were observed approximately 124 miles northwest of Uotsuri, the main islet in the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands, claimed by China as the Diaoyu islands. The aircraft carrier was identified as the Fujian, marking the first time the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force had spotted it.

Based on the hull numbers visible in the Japanese military’s photographs, the Fujian‘s escortS were the destroyers CNS Hangzhou and CNS Jinan. The photos provided by the Japanese Defense Ministry’s Joint Staff Office showed no aircraft or helicopters on the Fujian‘s flight deck.

Senior Captain Leng Guowei, the Chinese navy’s spokesperson, announced that the Fujian had departed for the “relevant waters” of the South China Sea through the Taiwan Strait. Leng described it as a routine part of the vessel’s construction process, pointing to further sea trials.

The Fujian was spotted leaving the port of Shanghai in eastern China, where it was constructed and launched, according to imagery shared on X on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear how long the aircraft carrier would remain in the South China Sea for its mission.

The 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait separates China and Taiwan, the self-ruled island long claimed by China as part of its territory, despite never having been governed by Beijing. The U.S. and its allies often deploy warships and aircraft through the strait in moves they say are meant to preserve the status quo.

Meanwhile, China and regional countries, including the Philippines, have overlapping maritime and territorial claims in the South China Sea, which often lead to standoffs and clashes at sea between rival forces, particularly those of China and the Philippines.

What People Are Saying

Senior Captain Leng Guowei, spokesperson for the People’s Liberation Army Navy, said on Friday: “The trans-area testing and training is a normal arrangement during the [Fujian]’s construction process.”

The Pentagon’s Chinese military power report 2024 wrote: “Fujian is larger than the ski-jump carriers and fitted with an electromagnetic catapult launch system. This design enables it to support additional fighter aircraft, fixed-wing early-warning aircraft, and more rapid flight operations, thus extending the reach and effectiveness of the [People’s Republic of China]’s carrier-based strike aircraft.”

The China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., said: “The [Fujian] began its first round of sea trials in May 2024 and is expected to enter service with the People’s Liberation Army Navy in 2025. Once operational, the Fujian will be considerably more advanced than China’s second carrier, the Shandong, and its first carrier, the Liaoning.”

What Happens Next

It remains to be seen when the Chinese military will officially announce the Fujian‘s commissioning date and whether it will build a new aircraft carrier to expand its fleet.