Featuring a full-length, flat flight deck and electromagnetic (EMALS) catapults that allow the carrier to launch aircraft more regularly, the ship is larger and more advanced than the two carriers China currently deploys. These are the Shandong, which was commissioned in late 2019, and the Liaoning, which China purchased from Ukraine second-hand in 1998 and retrofitted.

It will be at least a year before tests are completed and the Fujian, named after the Chinese province opposite Taiwan, will be put into active service. The only other aircraft carrier in the world with electromagnet catapults – the USS Gerald R Ford – was deployed in 2022, five years after it was commissioned.