China is planning on building two new aircraft carriers, says Li Jie, a Beijing-based senior researcher at the Naval Military Studies Research Institute of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), one of which will be the first to have a catapult take-off system. The designer of China’s second aircraft carrier, Zhu Yingfu, is in favor of an electromagnetic catapult system rather than a steam-powered system. All four of these carriers are envisioned to be conventionally powered, although naval chiefs are considering the possibility of a nuclear- powered carrier in the future. This was the first official confirmation of a project which has already been a subject of much media discussion and has been a heated topic in the latest Pentagon report on China’s military. Four carriers will give China the possibility of forming two dual carrier groups able to operate in separate places.