How Many Aircraft Carriers Does China Have in 2026?

China’s three carriers are the Liaoning (hull number 16), the Shandong (17) and the Fujian (18), and each is bigger and more capable than the one before.

The Liaoning started life as the Varyag, an unfinished Soviet Kuznetsov-class hull that China bought from Ukraine in 1998. It was commissioned on September 25, 2012. Its Shenyang J-15 fighters take off from a ski-jump bow, which limits how much fuel and how many weapons each jet can carry, and CSIS’s ChinaPower project puts its air wing at 18 to 24 J-15s.

The Shandong is an improved Liaoning built in China. Work began at Dalian in November 2013, the ship was launched on April 26, 2017, and it was commissioned in December 2019. CSIS estimates it displaces 66,000 to 70,000 tons, a few thousand more than the Liaoning, and it keeps the ski jump.

The Fujian is a different kind of ship. Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai launched it on June 17, 2022, and it was commissioned at Sanya on Hainan Island on November 5, 2025 in a ceremony attended by Xi Jinping. It has a flat deck and three electromagnetic catapults, the first on any Chinese ship, and outside estimates put it at about 80,000 tons fully loaded. Chinese state media have said it will reach full combat capability during 2026.

No. The Shandong has been in dry dock since January 2026, so two carriers are available this autumn: the Liaoning, which is deployed, and the Fujian, which is still building up its air wing.

The Liaoning led a task group into the Western Pacific on October 14 for what the PLA Navy called annual training. Japan’s defense ministry saw fighters taking off and landing about 250 kilometers south of Ishigaki Island, and by October 23 the group was heading toward the South China Sea, Defense News reported. The voyage came just before the U.S.-Japan Keen Sword exercise, the same drills that put U.S. NMESIS anti-ship launchers on Yonaguni.

The Shandong went into a new dry dock at Yulin Naval Base on Hainan in January. It was the first time a Chinese carrier had major maintenance anywhere other than Dalian, Janes reported. Satellite images from October 2 still showed it there, and Zona Militar reported that it may not return to operations until early 2027.

Yes. The fourth carrier, known outside China as the Type 004, is under construction at Dalian Shipyard, and satellite imagery suggests it will be nuclear-powered.

Prefabricated hull sections first appeared in a Dalian dry dock in early 2025, according to CSIS’s tracking of the project. In May 2026 CSIS measured the hull at about 286 meters from the unfinished bow to the stern, with a beam of about 46 meters; the Fujian measured 40 meters at a similar stage. CSIS rates nuclear power as likely, pointing to two compartments of about 15 by 15 meters that resemble shielded reactor containment, and it expects electromagnetic catapults. Beijing has not acknowledged a nuclear carrier program, and CSIS expects construction alone to take several more years.

Nine, if the Pentagon is right. Its annual report on China’s military, released in December 2025, said the PLA Navy aims to build six more carriers by 2035, for a total of nine, USNI News reported.

That figure is a U.S. assessment. Beijing has never published a carrier target. Six new ships in about nine years means one roughly every 18 months, a pace China has not yet reached: the Shandong took two years and eight months from launch to commissioning, and the Fujian took three years and five months, while its catapults and new jets were tested. CSIS names Jiangnan, the Fujian’s builder, as the likeliest second yard.

The count leaves out the Type 076 amphibious assault ship Sichuan. It was launched in December 2024 and began sea trials in November 2025, and it has its own electromagnetic catapult for drones and fixed-wing aircraft. It is an assault ship, not a carrier, and none of the figures here include it.

The United States has 11 aircraft carriers to China’s three. All 11 American carriers are nuclear-powered; all three Chinese ones burn conventional fuel.

The U.S. fleet is ten Nimitz-class ships plus the USS Gerald R. Ford. The Nimitz itself, in service since 1975, was due to leave in May 2026 but will now stay until at least March 2027, The Aviationist reported, keeping the fleet at the 11 carriers federal law requires. The second Ford-class ship, the John F. Kennedy (CVN 79), passed to the Navy under preliminary acceptance on September 29, 2026, with formal delivery expected in spring 2027, the Navy said. On October 13 it took the first F-35C landing on a Ford-class deck.

The gap is also one of size. A Nimitz or Ford displaces about 100,000 tons, the Fujian about 80,000 and the Shandong 66,000 to 70,000. Each American carrier has four catapults; the Fujian has three, and the Liaoning and Shandong have none.