China’s newest aircraft carrier may carry a weapon built to kill incoming torpedoes, a sign that its blue-water ambitions still face their deadliest threat from below.
This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that China’s newly commissioned aircraft carrier Fujian is likely to become the world’s first carrier equipped with an active anti-torpedo (ATT) system, giving it the ultimate “hard kill” capability against advanced Western submarines.
The Fujian, China’s third aircraft carrier and its first domestically designed ship, features a lightweight six-tube, 324-millimeter torpedo launcher, replacing the conventional 12-tube payload launchers seen on its predecessors.
The system appears to have been designed as a direct response to the “severe threat” posed by the US Navy’s Seawolf-class and next-generation SSN(X) attack submarines, with heavy wire-guided torpedoes capable of inflicting more devastating damage on large warships than anti-ship missiles.
The advanced defensive interceptor uses a broadband sonar array to distinguish real targets from decoys and a high-torque permanent magnet pump-jet thruster capable of accelerating the weapon to 50 to 60 knots within three seconds to track highly maneuverable torpedoes.
To ensure one-hit destruction, the ATT deploys directional charges and super-pressure shock waves, with possible supercavitation upgrades enabling defensive speeds of up to 200 knots to counter close-range underwater threats.
China’s development of an active ATT system for Fujian reflects an effort to compensate for the PLAN’s ongoing anti-submarine warfare deficiencies by strengthening the carrier strike group’s organic point defense layer against advanced US underwater threats.
China’s current carrier doctrine may highlight its deficiencies in anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities.
Steve Balestrieri notes in a February 2026 ITEM for 1945, China’s carriers were designed to operate relatively close to its coasts, under the cover of land-based missile networks and aircraft, rather than having comprehensive on-board defenses. Balestrieri points out that the approach stands in contrast to US carriers, which serve as “roaming nerve centers” for a wider network.
Consequently, he says that while China relies on long-range land-based missiles to threaten enemy carriers at a distance, its own carriers remain vulnerable to direct attack. He adds that US Virginia-class submarines, armed with the Mk48 heavy torpedo and Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST) missiles, could threaten Chinese carriers.
Shortcomings in PLAN ASW capabilities, particularly airborne ASW, could compound the vulnerability of China’s carriers to US submarines. Eli Tirk and Daniel Salisbury point to a May 2024 REPORT to the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) that China’s ASW air force has historically been limited by a lack of fixed-wing maritime patrol aircraft and has struggled with operator skill and training deficiencies.
Tirk and Salisbury say PLAN airborne ASW training has traditionally lacked realism because of administrative barriers that prevent training in different environments. Beyond that, they add that while the PLAN has aggressively developed newer platforms, qualitative advances in sensor data processing and weapons remain limited, leaving the force’s ability to execute complex ASW operations with joint weapons largely aspirational.
Highlighting broader systemic weaknesses in the PLAN’s ASW capabilities, Andrew Erickson mentions in a March 2026 US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) TESTIMONY that a critical obstacle is China’s deficient meteorological and oceanographic capabilities, which lag behind the US Navy and leave the PLAN with a comparative ignorance of the ocean battlespace.
He adds that the lack of deployed sensors, limited patrol aviation and inadequate logistical infrastructure severely limits ASW operations outside the area. It also notes that the PLAN faces major operational weaknesses in mine countermeasures (MCM) and real-time sensitive data fusion due to complex intra-service coordination obstacles.
While the PLAN has surpassed the US Navy in fleet size, the latter retains a significant advantage in submarine stealth.
In one REPORT this month for the Korea Institute of Maritime Strategy (KIMS), Erickson points out that acoustic signatures remain an ongoing Achilles’ heel for Chinese submarines, leaving the Type 093 second-generation nuclear attack submarines (SSN) and Type 094 nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). jet propulsion and natural reactor circulation.
Erickson notes that while China’s initial nuclear platforms suffered from an extreme lack of noise, the PLAN has worked aggressively to close this acoustic gap. He adds that through lower-vibration machines and reverse-engineered Russian pneumatic isolation mounts, China has made significant advances, with the next-generation third-generation Type 095 SSN and Type 096 SSBN projected to eventually come closer to Russia’s upgraded Akula-class stealth standards.
Also, US submarines are actively operating along China’s periphery. The South China Sea Strategic Situation Study Initiative (SCSPI), a Chinese think tank, published a REPORT in June 2026 stating that by 2025 the US would deploy at least 11 nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) and one nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine (SSGN), the USS Ohio, to the South China Sea.
The SCSPI report adds that the US Navy relied on auxiliary submarine tenders, including USS Emory S. Land and USS Frank Cable, to provide critical logistical support and conduct multinational port visits to support these forward-deployed underwater forces.
But how China builds its fourth, likely nuclear-powered aircraft carrierhe may eventually be able to maintain power projection beyond the First Island Chain, which runs through Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. Consequently, nuclear-powered carriers and their escorts may need to operate more independently of ground support, placing greater emphasis on organic layered defenses of all aspects.
In a June 2024 CMSI REPORTDaniel Rice notes that China’s carrier strike groups employ a multi-layered defensive concept organized into three concentric zones. According to Rice, the Defense Depth Area, which stretches from 185 to 400 kilometers, relies on submarines that conduct offensive sweeps and multi-role J-15 fighters for long-range air and ship strikes.
He mentions that the Middle Zone Defense Zone, which extends from 45 to 185 kilometers, is guarded by large surface fighters; Type 052D destroyers provide multi-target tracking and advanced air defense, while Type 054A frigates handle surface control.
Finally, he says the Point Defense Zone extends from 100 meters to 45 kilometers, using terminal defense systems to intercept targets that breach the outer layers.
Given that layered approach to carrier defense, China’s new ATT could play a role in the Point Defense Area, providing an additional layer to the already formidable carrier defense.
If China’s carriers are to transition from regionally protected bastions to sustained blue-water operations, systems such as Fujian’s ATT will matter less as standalone advances than as tests of whether the PLAN can integrate sensors, escorts, aircraft, submarines, and command networks into a truly survivable carrier ecosystem.
The next contest, then, will not be whether China can erect advanced defenses on individual capital ships, but whether it can close the wider undersea warfare gap quickly enough to make those ships reliable instruments of power projection in waters where U.S. submarines still have a quiet advantage.
