China’s effort to field a carrier-capable stealth fighter based on the FC-31 airframe is among the most consequential developments in East Asian military aviation this decade. Observers who follow the Shenyang program note a clear trajectory: a prototype navalized FC-31 appeared in public imagery and made developmental flights in 2021, and by 2024 full-scale mockups and additional prototypes began appearing on and alongside China’s carriers and its new Type 003 test facilities. These steps together suggest a deliberate path toward integrating a smaller, stealthy fighter into the People’s Liberation Army Navy aviation mix rather than relying exclusively on the larger, nonstealth J-15.
Technically the program matters because it attempts to combine low observable shaping, internal weapons bays, and navalized features such as folding wings and arresting gear. The navalized variant observed in 2021 included a catapult launch bar and folding wing mechanisms, the changes that would be necessary to operate from more modern catapult-equipped decks. Those design choices make it plausible that a mature J-35-type fighter could be used both on new catapult-assisted carriers and, in modified form, on ramp-launched carriers for lighter payload or training missions.
By early 2024 China had placed full-size mockups of the type on carrier decks as part of deck handling and flight deck integration exercises. Imagery and reporting showed mockups aboard the new Type 003 Fujian and on the older Liaoning as that carrier completed midlife upgrades. The Fujian is notable because it uses electromagnetic catapults which expand the launch weight and fuel margins available to carrier aircraft. The appearance of mockups on both catapult-equipped and ski-jump carriers indicates that Beijing is thinking about flexibility across its fleet and about an eventual carrier air wing architecture that mixes stealthy fighters, legacy J-15s, AEW platforms and unmanned systems.
Operational effects are best understood in two time horizons. Over the next five years the primary impact will be more limited and incremental. Prototypes and mockups do not equal a fully integrated carrier air wing. China must prove not only the airframe and arrested recovery or catapult launch but also the harder systems: carrier-based airborne early warning and control, tanker support or at-sea refueling concepts, deck cycles and sortie rates, and realistic training against external adversary tactics. These are complex, institutional problems that require time and exercise, not just hardware. Naval aviation is as much a learning problem as an engineering problem.
Looking farther out the strategic effect is larger. A credible stealth carrier fighter raises the cost to any adversary seeking to operate aircraft carriers near China. Stealthy fighters complicate air defense targeting, increase the difficulty of establishing local air superiority, and improve the reach and survivability of maritime strike operations. Coupled with improved AEW and long-range anti-ship missiles, a stealthy carrier fighter can be part of an anti-access layer that forces adversaries to spread sensors and escorts farther out, to invest more in distributed networking, and to change carrier strike group doctrine. The Type 003 and its catapults are an enabler for such concepts because they allow aircraft to launch with heavier fuel and weapons loads than ski-jump carriers permit.
That said, important caveats remain. Public reporting through mid-2024 indicates work in progress rather than a fleet fielding. The step from prototype flight and deck mockups to an operational squadron is long. China will need to prove carrier launch and recovery cycles with fully-equipped aircraft, certify arresting gear and catapult interfaces, operationalize AEW-killer combinations such as the KJ-600 if that program matures, and build maintenance and logistics chains for a stealthy airframe that will likely demand specialized coatings and supply lines. The PLAN’s existing carriers offer useful training platforms but are not a shortcut around the months and years of at-sea testing and iterative fixes that any carrier air wing requires.
Policymakers and naval planners outside China should treat the J-35 program as a strategic inflection point rather than an immediate crisis. The program reduces strategic surprise risk for China by creating an organic pathway to fielding stealthy, carrier-capable fighters, and by providing a scalable option for export states should Beijing pursue sales. For regional navies and the US Navy the correct posture is not panic but adaptation: accelerate realistic, joint training against low-observable threats, invest in longer-range sensors and resilient distributed networks, and refine operational concepts that mitigate the stealth advantage through layered sensing and attrition-resistant deployments. Public reporting indicates that the hardware trajectory is credible, therefore adjustments in force posture and procurement priorities are prudent.
In short, the J-35 program matters because it sits at the intersection of platform design, carrier technology, and doctrinal evolution. The combination of a smaller stealth fighter with the Fujian class carrier and attendant AEW and unmanned systems could, over time, complicate Western carrier operations near China’s maritime approaches. That outcome is not inevitable. It will hinge on integration, training, scale and logistics as much as on any single airframe. Observers should continue to track carrier deck trials, AEW development, and the pace of prototype to production transitions rather than only counting aircraft silhouettes on satellite photos. The long-term strategic contest will be decided by systems and institutions, not by a single jet.