New Aircraft Carriers Spark Chinese Naval Aviation Transformation

Amid the hoopla around the Zhuhai Airshow last year, a key moment passed almost unnoticed. Two Shenyang J-15Ts and one J-15D flew over the crowd in formation. One of the J-15D’s dangled a refueling hose and drogue basket, showcasing a carrier-based air refueling capability and the recent transformation of China’s naval aviation branch.

For all but the last 12 of its 73-year history, the aviation branch of China’s Navy stayed strictly land-based, featuring a mix of bombers, fighters and patrol aircraft not dissimilar to the country’s air force—except for a maritime focus.

• New carriers will have up to four aircraft types
• Land-based aviation units have been transferred to the Chinese Air Force

That changed on May 10, 2013, when China’s Navy activated the 1st Carrier Air Wing, consisting of prototypes of new J-15 fighters. These clones of Soviet-era Sukhoi Su-33 fighters entered service to operate from the Liaoning, which itself is a recommissioned, short-takeoff-but-assisted-recovery (Stobar) Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier. For the first time since the founding of the naval aviation branch in 1952, China boasted a seagoing aviation wing.

After spending a decade establishing its sea legs, the next evolution of the naval aviation branch is underway. The 10th Carrier Aviation Brigade is now training to operate from the Fujian, China’s first catapult-assisted-but-assisted-recovery carrier that is currently in sea trials.

The scheduled first deployment of the conventionally powered Fujian aircraft carrier next year is planned to display Chinese naval aviation at its full strength. China’s first two Stobar carriers—Liaoning and Shandong—deployed with only the J-15 fighter and J-15D, a variant optimized for electronic warfare. By contrast, the Fujian and the newly launched Type 004—China’s first nuclear-powered carrier—will feature a more diverse carrier air wing that bears a striking resemblance to its U.S. Navy counterpart.

Options for the combat element of the 10th Carrier Aviation Brigade include the newly delivered Shenyang J-35 for the penetrating strike role, the J-15 for fleet defense, the J-15D for jamming support and the Xian KJ-600 for airborne early warning.

A near facsimile of the brigade can be found in the composition of the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Air Wing 2, with the Lockheed Martin F-35C, Boeing F/A-18E/F, Boeing EA-18G and Northrop Grumman E-2D, respectively, playing comparable roles. Indeed, in some cases the similarity is more than functional, with the J-35 and KJ-600 near copies of the U.S.-made F-35C and E-2D. As the nuclear-powered Type 004 carrier enters service this decade, Beijing could feasibly boast a capability matching Washington’s airpower at sea on a singular basis.

The advances by China’s carrier--based navy coincides with a major shift in the aviation wing’s force structure. On the last day of the China Naval Aviation Development Forum in September 2022, Dong Qing, director of the Aviation Bureau of the Navy General Staff, told Chinese reporters of the change, speaking of the transformation from a shore-based to ship-based aviation capability.

Last year, U.S. military analysts marked the change in their annual report to Congress on China’s military strength. “In 2023, shifting missions for [Chinese Navy] naval aviation triggered the transfer of significant portions of [Chinese Navy] shore-based, fixed-wing combat aviation units, facilities, air defense and radar units to the [Chinese Air Force],” the report’s authors wrote.

“Given time, this shift will probably enable better [command and control] over [China’s] integrated air defense systems as well as the network of ground-based air domain awareness radars,” the report added.

Specifically, the policy transferred nearly all of the navy’s shore-based aviation to the air force, including three fighter brigades, two bomber regiments and five radar and air defense brigades, according to a July 2023 analysis by the U.S. Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI). The new owners repainted the aircraft—primarily a mix of Xian H-6 and JH-7 bombers and Shenyang J-11 fighters—in Chinese Air Force colors, while the crews swapped navy uniforms for air force apparel. Of the navy’s original land-based aviation fleet, only the Xian Y-9 anti-submarine warfare and special mission aircraft remained under naval command.

The U.S. Air Force observers also noted the larger implications of the shift. “The transfer of [Chinese Navy] JH-7 and H-6 aircraft strips [the navy] of most of its minelaying aircraft,” the 2023 CASI report states. “Unless the [Chinese Air Force] integrates minelaying topics into its own training outline, this leaves [the Chinese Navy] Y-9 anti-submarine warfare aircraft as the only aircraft that train to conduct minelaying.”

In other ways, the two-year-old reorganization may have strengthened a once-fragmented coastline air defense network. Until 2023, air defense operations along China’s coast belonged to the air force, except for Hainan Island and a 250-km-long (155-mi.) swath of Zhejiang province, CASI says. Now, all ground-based air defenses and land-based aviation are consolidated under control of air force units, with additional long-range fire support provided by the army’s ballistic missile-wielding rocket force.

Meanwhile, the navy’s aviation branch continues adapting to its new role as a carrier-based force. During a training drill in early February, a naval aviation fighter practiced how to jam an enemy ship’s radar, then dove down to sea level to launch a sea-skimming missile attack on the target.

“The department’s leaders introduced that in low-altitude penetration training at sea,” the People’s Liberation Army Daily, the Chinese military’s newspaper, reported in a Feb. 14 article. “Pilots not only have to overcome difficulties such as few reference points and complex airflow changes but also have to deal with a variety of special situations on the spot.”