China's world-largest navy is working on adding a massive aircraft carrier that might even surpass the United States' largest, according to analysts.
Maxar Technologies satellite images of China's Dalian shipbuilding facility in northeast China showed potential construction of a carrier that would allow fighter jets launched from four locations off the deck, analysts told NBC News.
China has not announced a new massive carrier, but recently launched Fujian, a Type 003, intended to match the 11 supercarriers the U.S. fleet might have in the works.
"We think this is them testing equipment and layouts for the upcoming type 04 carrier," James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies researcher Michael Duitsman said in a video call this week, according to NBC.
The USS Gerald R. Ford is the world's largest and most advanced carrier with four catapults. Analysts viewing the Maxar images see China's Dalian shipyard gearing up a production facility to produce carriers with four catapults, according to independent naval analyst H.I. Sutton to NBC.
China's shipbuilding is "purely defensive in nature" and not a function of a naval "arms race," according to Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the embassy in Washington.
China would "never engage in aggression and expansion, but we will never give up our legitimate rights and interests, and we will resolutely counter all threats and challenges," according to Pengyu.
"China has always adhered to the strategy of self-defense and does not engage in arms race with any other country," he said, adding China has "always taken concrete actions to safeguard world peace and inject stability and certainty into the world."