Chinese Navy Flexes Muscle with Dual-Aircraft Carrier Exercise in South China Sea

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China’s PLA Navy conducts first-ever dual-carrier exercises in the South China Sea featuring the Liaoning and Shandong aircraft carriers.

The exercise was part of the Liaoning aircraft carrier formation's regular real-combat training in the high seas, which concluded recently, aiming to enhance the integrated combat capability of the aircraft carrier formations, a PLA Navy report said.

The training was conducted in waters including the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea, featuring multiple subjects under real-combat circumstances, the navy said.

The operation took place in the middle of a long-distance exercise made by the CNS Liaoning aircraft carrier and its strike group that sailed across the Yellow, East China and South China seas from September to October, the Navy said in a release.

After the Liaoning group arrived in the South China Sea, it was joined by another carrier strike group led by the CNS Shandong.

The Liaoning group has returned to its homeport in Qingdao, Shandong province, the Navy noted without disclosing the Shandong group's whereabouts.

At a news conference in Beijing on Thursday afternoon, Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said the two-carrier exercise was part of the Navy's annual training plan and aimed at improving the carrier strike groups' systematic combat strength.

Currently, the Navy operates two aircraft carriers — the Liaoning and the Shandong. Both have a standard displacement of around 50,000 tons and a conventional propulsion system, and they use a ski jump method for launching fixed-wing aircraft.

The country’s third and most modern aircraft carrier — the CNS Fujian, which displaces more than 80,000 metric tons of water and uses an electromagnetic launch system, or electromagnetic catapult, to launch fixed-wing aircraft did not partake in the exercise.