Hot Engine Plan Regarding the high concern about the construction of the fourth aircraft carrier and whether it will be nuclear-powered, Yuan Huazhi, political commissar of the Chinese Navy, responded in an interview during the two sessions (annual meetings of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) that "it will be announced soon." According to the Hong Kong Commercial Daily released on Tuesday (March 5), the outside world previously speculated that China's fourth aircraft carrier has not announced the details for a long time, which may be a technical bottleneck, Yuan Huazhi said in an interview that there is no technical bottleneck in China's aircraft carrier under construction.
As for whether the fourth aircraft carrier will be nuclear-powered, he said, "it will be announced soon."
Yuan Huazhi stressed that China's aircraft carrier is not built to compete with the United States, but to protect the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity and protect the country's rights and interests.
Military sources familiar with the matter revealed as early as 2019 that China would build a second of the most advanced domestically produced Type 002 aircraft carriers. This will be China's fourth aircraft carrier, which is scheduled to be built as soon as 2021.
China's current aircraft carriers are conventionally powered, the sources added, but the Navy's top brass has been considering building more technologically advanced nuclear-powered carriers.
China currently has three aircraft carriers, of which the Liaoning and Shandong are in service, and the Shandong is the first Chinese domestically produced Type 002 aircraft carrier. The third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, reappeared on CCTV's "News Network" last month. Based on this, military commentators have judged that the Fujian ship has entered the final stage of construction, and it is expected that it will soon undergo sea trial navigation tests.