“China is now, by far, the world’s dominant maritime power by every measure other than sheer naval tonnage,” said retired U.S. Navy submariner Tom Shugart in Newsweek. The past week put that assertion into sharp relief as, for the first time, two Chinese carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, were at sea simultaneously in the western Pacific, both sailing past the Second Island Chain, a line long viewed as a cornerstone of U.S. and allied maritime containment policy.
This simultaneous deployment is a first in Chinese history for blue-water operations, both symbolically and in accordance with technical and strategic realities. The Liaoning was spotted east of the Second Island Chain, off Minamitori Island, whereas the Shandong, escorted by a powerful surface escort, conducted flight operations within Japan’s EEZ off Okinotorishima over 1,000 miles south of Tokyo. Japan’s Defense Minister Gen Nakatani described this as “the first time we’ve identified two Chinese aircraft carriers operating in the Pacific Ocean at the same time,” underscoring the significance of the event here.
The Shandong-led task group’s composition reflects the PLAN’s evolving doctrine of carrier strike group operations. Alongside the carrier sailed a Type 055 destroyer, two Type 054A frigates, and a Type 901 fast combat support ship here. The Type 055 is China’s most advanced surface warship, a 13,000-ton stealth destroyer with 112 vertical launch cells that fire long-range anti-air, anti-ship, and land-attack missiles. Its single mast, dual-band radar, and advanced electronic warfare suites enable it to serve as the anti-air warfare commander and fleet defense backbone here. The Hongqi-16 vertical launch air defense system of the Type 054A frigates and advanced sonars provide them with robust anti-submarine and area air defense, which is required for blue-water escort roles here.
Protecting these warships, the Type 901 fast combat support ship enables distant operations away from home ports through fueling, ammunition, and supply replenishment at sea. This supply backbone is needed for sustained power projection beyond the First and Second Island Chains, a capability up to now reserved only for the U.S. Navy.
Both Liaoning and Shandong employ the STOBAR (Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) ski-jump launching system, a configuration that allows J-15 fighter and helicopter operations but limits the launch weight and rate compared to American CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) carriers. This technological disparity is one whereby the Chinese carriers are capable of projecting power aerially, albeit with sortie rates and payloaded aircraft still lagging behind those of the Americans. The about-to-be-commissioned Type 003 Fujian, equipped with electromagnetic catapults, will close this gap significantly here, though.
Geopolitically, the United States has customarily employed the “island chain” hypothesis to keep Chinese naval expansion in check. The First Island Chain, stretching from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines, and the Second Island Chain, stretching through Guam and Micronesia, serve as both physical and psychological lines of demarcation. The forward deployment of U.S. bombers and newest radar facilities along these lines are intended to signal American will and support regional deterrence here. The latest Chinese operations brazenly defy this architecture, suggesting a new phase in the battle for Pacific maritime supremacy.
But legal architecture that regulates these activities is no less complex than operational realities. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) establishes the EEZ as a 200-nautical-mile zone outside a coastal state’s baseline and grants the state sovereign rights to natural resources but not complete sovereignty over the waters themselves. Foreign warships in the EEZ have the right of navigation and overflight, provided they exercise “due regard” for the rights of the coastal state therein. As Sam Bateman contends, “There is no simple idea of what constitutes a freedom of navigation—other than in the most general sense.” Such vagueness is a source of chronic tension, because China contends its activity is “fully consistent with international law and international practices,” while Japan and the U.S. are keenly alert to any such departure from customary practice.
China’s underlying technical competence behind its dual carrier operation is supported by the country’s industrial momentum. The PLAN commissioned more than 370 ships, among them a growing fleet of new destroyers, frigates, and submarines. The Type 054A frigate, for example, now numbers more than 30 ships commissioned, with successive refits extending missile range and electronic warfare capability. Its compromise between cost, automation, and multi-mission flexibility makes it a mainstay of Chinese surface action groups while more capable and bigger platforms enter service here.
To defense analysts and maritime security observers, the significance of this twin carrier deployment is not only its present tactical edge but also what message it sends regarding China’s intent and capability to be a blue-water navy in fact. As Australia-based naval analyst Alex Luck told Newsweek, “China does consider their carrier force as an important element in adding strategic space across the Pacific, aimed at making American deployments near the Chinese main more challenging.”
The strategic geometry of the Pacific is in flux. China’s naval forces’ growing technical prowess, arguments over changing understandings of freedom of navigation in international law, and demonstration of operational reach all point towards a new maritime competition era where the boundaries of power, law, and technology are being tested and redrawn in real time.
