The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) seeks to add six new aircraft carriers to its fleet by 2035, according to the US Department of Defense—bringing its total up to nine, and setting Beijing on a collision course with the United States. 

A few weeks ago, the Department of Defense released its annual report assessing the capabilities of the Chinese military.

According to the Pentagon’s unclassified report on the capabilities of the Chinese armed forces, Beijing seeks to add six new aircraft carriers by the middle of the next decade. These six carriers would be added to the Liaoning, the Shandong, and the Fujian, its current contingent, for a total of nine flattops.  

The Chinese military is currently undergoing one of the most significant military modernization and rearmament processes in modern history. The PLAN is one of the largest beneficiaries of Beijing’s military modernization process. In the past decade, it has added scores of warships to its roster, including missile-guided destroyers, submarines, amphibious landing ships, and aircraft carriers—giving it a larger fleet size than the US Navy in terms of total number of ships, although........

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