China’s Making Bigger Third Aircraft Carrier

A WeChat public account of an official Chinese media said there is a new aircraft carrier that has been built on the berth. This is being interpreted as official confirmation that China is building a third aircraft carrier.

China’s third aircraft carrier will have nearly double the displacement of the Liaoning aircraft carrier. The third carrier may reach 80,000 tons and should have electromagnetic catapult launching of jets.

This would be far closer to the 100,000 to 107,000 tons of the US Gerald Ford super-carrier and Nimitz carrier.

An 80,000-ton aircraft carrier would be larger than the 72,000 ton Queen Elizabeth class carriers that are being built by the UK.