Future Chinese Aircraft Carriers to be Russian Design
Despite years trying to develop their own designs, the Chinese have decided it can’t wait, and it will be cheaper to use Russian designs.
China will advance production of aircraft carriers cast in the mold of the decades-old Russian Liaoning No. 16, meaning they will not have modern catapults or nuclear power. But they will be easier to build and maintain than more advanced designs would have been.
China will advance production of aircraft carriers cast in the mold of the decades-old Russian Liaoning No. 16, meaning they will not have modern catapults or nuclear power. But they will be easier to build and maintain than more advanced designs would have been.

Senior officials of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and PRC MoD have reportedly decided that for the immediate future all additional aircraft carriers will be reverse-engineered analogues of the current Russian-design Liaoning aircraft carrier No. 16. The decision, made in a December, 31 2015 announcement by an official MoD spokesman, indicated that the follow-on Chinese carriers would be designed using only “domestic technology,”