![]() However, like any conventionally-powered warship, the Fujian and Shandong are limited by the fuel in its bunkers and the munitions in its magazines. Such aircraft carriers have come to represent the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) new power and its ability to push out China’s defensive perimeter to the “second island chain” and beyond. That will enable its fighters to fly strike missions at longer ranges and with heavier ordnance loads, making the new carrier even more formidable than its predecessor. The Fujian will be China’s first aircraft carrier equipped with catapults to launch its aircraft. By 2024, China’s third aircraft carrier is expected to enter service. There, it conducted some eighty J-15 fighter sorties that simulated air strikes on the island. In April 2023, a Chinese aircraft carrier battle group, led by the Shandong (China’s second aircraft carrier and the first that it built from the keel up), sailed through the Bashi Channel to an area about 400 kilometers east of Taiwan. China has tried to supplement its at-sea replenishment with shore-based replenishment by developing support bases and dual-use commercial ports in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.China’s navy now fields twelve underway replenishment ships, one for every 7.1 ocean-going surface combatants and twice the number it operated a decade ago. ![]() ![]() Monitoring the number and capabilities of Chinese underway replenishment ships is a good way to track the progress China has made toward developing a true blue-water navy. The Chinese navy’s ability to project power into distant waters like the Indian Ocean or the Persian Gulf is constrained by its at-sea replenishment capacity. ![]()
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