With fresh evidence of a nuclear-powered Type 004 taking shape, China may be crossing the threshold from regional navy to true blue-water challenger.
This month, The War Zone (TWZ) reported that China is advancing construction of its fourth aircraft carrier, widely referred to as the Type 004, at the Dalian shipyard in Liaoning province, with new imagery strongly suggesting the vessel will be nuclear-powered.
Photos circulating online show what appears to be a reactor containment structure embedded in the hull, a feature consistent with US nuclear supercarriers and seen as a key indicator of propulsion design.
The development occurred just days after the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) commissioned the Fujian, its first domestically built carrier featuring electromagnetic catapults, highlighting China’s swift naval growth.
US Department of Defense (DoD) assessments have noted China’s next-generation carriers will have greater endurance, enabling deployments far beyond its immediate periphery.
Nuclear propulsion would give the Type 004 virtually unlimited range and sufficient power for advanced sensors and systems, narrowing the gap with the US Navy’s fleet of 11 nuclear carriers and placing China alongside France as the only other nation operating such vessels.
Reports also suggest China may pursue a parallel conventionally powered design, leveraging its vast shipbuilding capacity to field multiple flattops. The push reflects China’s ambition to project power globally while retaining conventional carriers for regional contingencies, such as Taiwan and South China Sea territorial disputes.
While Fujian has been touted as China’s top carrier design, it may still have significant limitations, being the first of its class. US Navy Captain Carl Schuster stated in an October 2025 CNN report that the Fujian might operate at only 60% of the capacity of a US Nimitz-class carrier.
Schuster pointed out that the angle at which the landing area crosses the Fujian’s deck is only 6 degrees off center, compared to 9 degrees on US carriers, which limits space between the landing strip and the forward two catapults. He explained that the longer landing area, combined with the narrower deck angle, reduces the available space for repositioning recovered aircraft.
In the same CNN report, Lieutenant Commander Keith Stewart mentioned that China lacks operational experience with electromagnetic catapults, as Fujian is its first ship equipped with such. Stewart points out that certain experiences can only be learned under specific conditions – specifically, nighttime carrier operations.
Yet Fujian’s limitations point to the real prize: the next-generation Type 004. Schuster says Fujian might be a stepping stone to the Type 004, incorporating design lessons and improvements from the former, following China’s approach to its first carrier, the Liaoning, in building an improved version, the Shandong.
Should the Type 004 be completed, China would have a four-carrier fleet – three conventionally powered and one nuclear. However, this combination of forces might be suboptimal because groups of three carriers would enable continuous operations through rotation – with one carrier at sea, another in training, and a third in refit and maintenance.
A six-carrier force could keep two flattops at sea, with conventional carriers operating inside the First Island Chain—China’s home-water arc from Okinawa through Taiwan to the Philippines—where refueling and land-based support are abundant.
China’s nuclear-powered carriers, freed from the range and endurance constraints of conventional power, could operate freely in the Second Island Chain spanning the Bonin Islands, Guam, and Papua New Guinea.
Under a missile umbrella of long-range ballistic missiles such as the DF-21 and DF-26 that could reach out into the Second Island Chain, China’s conventionally powered carriers could contribute to localized air supremacy in the Taiwan Strait and overmatch weaker rivals in the South China Sea, such as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
At the same time, China’s nuclear-powered carriers would be part of a maneuver element in the Second Island Chain, supplementing China’s missile forces as a counter-intervention force against the US in a Taiwan contingency.
But a bigger strategic hurdle looms. China remains boxed in by geography, forced to push its carriers through just two vulnerable exits—the Miyako Strait and Bashi Channel—both now covered by US and allied missile batteries.
China may try to break out by layering carrier defenses, striking US and allied missile sites, seizing key islands in the Ryukyus and Batanes, or covertly backing China-leaning politicians in allied states to force the removal of US missile batteries.
A nuclear–conventional mix also helps China solve the numbers problem: nuclear carriers deliver global reach, while cheaper conventional flattops can be built fast enough to bulk out a force the US itself struggles to maintain.
While the US has explored the “lightning carrier” as a way to disperse naval airpower across amphibious assault ships, a platform trying to be both assault ship and carrier often ends up doing neither well.
These lightning carriers, with their small air wings, might sacrifice offensive power by withholding fighters for fleet air defense, or increase their vulnerability by dedicating more aircraft to an attack.
Lightning carriers may also have less available space for fuel and ordnance for their small air wings, having to allocate space for amphibious assault vehicles and troops. They may also lack the deep survivability features of true carriers, i.e., an armored flight deck and the extensive internal anti-torpedo defenses.
China may opt to avoid these problems by retaining the capability to build dedicated conventionally powered carriers, such as the Fujian and improved versions. A dedicated conventional carrier would not have to allocate internal space for amphibious assault vehicles and troops.
Instead, that space could be invested in aircraft, fuel and ordnance, along with deep survivability features, while costing significantly less than a nuclear-powered version.
China’s cruise toward a nuclear supercarrier signals not just ambition, but a looming test of whether it can break out of the First Island Chain and survive the US’ missile gauntlet. If it does, the Indo-Pacific enters a new era where US naval dominance is no longer a given.
