People's Liberation Army Navy in the context of "Lüshun Port"

An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the capital ship of a fleet (known as a carrier battle group), as it allows a naval force to project seaborne air power far from homeland without depending on local airfields for staging aircraft operations. Since their inception in the early 20th century, aircraft carriers have evolved from wooden vessels used to deploy individual tethered reconnaissance balloons, to nuclear-powered supercarriers that carry dozens of fighters, strike aircraft, military helicopters, AEW&Cs and other types of aircraft such as UCAVs. While heavier fixed-wing aircraft such as airlifters, gunships and bombers have been launched from aircraft carriers, these aircraft do not often land on a carrier due to flight deck limitations.

The aircraft carrier, along with its onboard aircraft and defensive ancillary weapons, is the largest weapon system ever created. By their tactical prowess, mobility, autonomy and the variety of operational means, aircraft carriers are often the centerpiece of modern naval warfare, and have significant diplomatic influence in deterrence, command of the sea and air supremacy. Since the Second World War, the aircraft carrier has replaced the battleship in the role of flagship of a fleet, and largely transformed naval battles from gunfire to beyond-visual-range air strikes. In addition to tactical aptitudes, it has great strategic advantages in that, by sailing in international waters, it does not need to interfere with any territorial sovereignty and thus does not risk diplomatic complications or conflict escalation due to trespassing, and obviates the need for land use authorizations from third-party countries, reduces the times and transit logistics of aircraft and therefore significantly increases the time of availability on the combat zone.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It consists of four services—Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force—and four arms—Aerospace Force, Cyberspace Force, Information Support Force, and Joint Logistics Support Force. It operates under the absolute leadership of the CCP and is led by the Central Military Commission (CMC) with its chairman as commander-in-chief.

The PLA can trace its origins during the Republican era to the left-wing units of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), when they broke away in 1927 in an uprising against the nationalist government as the Chinese Red Army before being reintegrated into the NRA as units of New Fourth Army and Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The two NRA communist units were reconstituted as the PLA in 1947. Since 1949, the PLA has used nine different military strategies, which it calls "strategic guidelines". The most important came in 1956, 1980, and 1993. Politically, the PLA and the paramilitary People's Armed Police (PAP) have the largest delegation in the National People's Congress (NPC); the joint delegation currently has 281 deputies—over 9% of the total—all of whom are CCP members.

The naval history of China dates back thousands of years, with archives existing since the late Spring and Autumn period regarding the Chinese navy and the various ship types employed in wars. The Ming dynasty of China was the leading global maritime power between 1400 and 1433, when Chinese shipbuilders built massive ocean-going junks and the Chinese imperial court launched seven maritime voyages. In modern times, the current People's Republic of China and the Republic of China governments continue to maintain standing navies through the People's Liberation Army Navy and the Republic of China Navy, respectively.

An amphibious assault ship is a type of amphibious warfare ship designed for spearheading amphibious incursions of marines into enemy territories during an armed conflict, via launching either naval landings or air assaults and also by providing shipborne close air support and logistics for landed friendly forces. Such a ship is typically the capital ship of a dedicated fleet known as the amphibious ready group or expeditionary strike group.

Amphibious assault ships evolved from aircraft carriers converted for specific use as helicopter carriers, which, as a result, are often mistaken for conventional fixed-wing aircraft carriers. Like the aircraft carriers they were developed from, some amphibious assault ships also support V/STOL fixed-wing aircraft, and some latest models (e.g. China's Type 076) have catapult systems for assisted takeoff of fixed-wing light aircraft such as UCAVs and have a secondary role as drone carriers. Most modern AAS designs also carry landing craft with most including a well deck, usually at the stern, to support large LCACs (hovercraft) and LCUs, which can insert both infantry and combat vehicles directly onto land.

Fujian (18; Chinese: 福建舰; pinyin: Fújiàn Jiàn) is a Chinese conventionally powered aircraft carrier serving in the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). It is the third carrier of the Chinese aircraft carrier programme and the first of the Type 003 class (NATO/OSD Fujian class), succeeding the Type 002 Shandong. It is China's first indigenously designed carrier, and its first capable of catapult-assisted take-offs (CATOBAR); previous Chinese carriers used ski-jumps (STOBAR). It is the second carrier in the world (after the United States Navy's Gerald R. Ford) to have electromagnetic catapults (EMALS) for launching carrier-based aircraft. The EMALS of Fujian is powered by a Medium-Voltage Direct Current (MVDC) integrated power system—the first of its kind for an aircraft carrier, stated to be more reliable compared to the AC-based EMALS of the Gerald R. Ford-class. It is also the first aircraft carrier in the world to launch a fifth-generation fighter using the electromagnetic catapult system.

Fujian was built by the Jiangnan Shipyard, launched on 17 June 2022, and started sea trials in May 2024. In 2019, analyst Robert Farley from the U.S. Army War College believed that Fujian would be the "largest and most advanced aircraft carrier ever built outside the United States".

The Eastern Theater Command (Chinese: 东部战区; pinyin: Dōngbù zhànqū) is one of the five theater commands of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), founded 1 February 2016. It replaced the Nanjing Military Region. The command is headquartered in Nanjing.

Its jurisdiction includes the provinces of Anhui, Fujian, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, as well as Shanghai and the East China Sea to include the Taiwan Strait. The Eastern Theater Command is primarily composed three subordinate single-service component commands: the Eastern Theater Ground Force of the PLAGF, the East Sea Fleet of the PLAN, and the Eastern Theater Command Air Force of the PLAAF which conduct combat operations within the command's area of responsibility. Also under the Eastern Theater Command is the Wuxi Joint Logistics Support Center (JSLC) of the CMC's Joint Logistics Support Force which provides logistic and material support to the command and Base 61 of the PLARF which is responsible for missile employment in the Eastern Theater.

A helicopter carrier is a type of aircraft carrier whose primary purpose is to operate helicopters. It has a large flight deck that occupies a substantial part of the deck, which can extend the full length of the ship like HMS Ocean of the Royal Navy (RN), or extend only partway, usually aft, as in the Soviet Navy's Moskva class or in the Chinese Navy's Type 0891A. It often also has a hangar deck for the storage and maintenance of rotorwing aircraft.

Pure helicopter carriers are difficult to define in the 21st century. The advent of STOVL aircraft such as the Harrier jump jet, and now the F-35B, have complicated the classification; the United States Navy's Wasp class, for instance, carries six to eight Harriers as well as over 20 helicopters. Only smaller carriers unable to operate the Harrier, and older, pre-Harrier-era carriers, can be regarded as true helicopter carriers. In many cases, other carriers, able to operate STOVL aircraft, are classified as "light aircraft carriers". Other vessels, such as the Wasp class, are also capable of embarking troops such as marines and landing them ashore; they are classified as landing helicopter docks.

Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The rank is equal to the army rank of colonel and air force rank of group captain.

Equivalent ranks worldwide include ship-of-the-line captain (e.g. France, Argentina, Spain), captain of sea and war (e.g. Brazil, Portugal), captain at sea (e.g. Germany, Netherlands) and "captain of the first rank" (Russia).