[simonh]

I'm surprised they don't have them working yet. An Australian carrier was decommed a few decades ago and went to China for scrap. The Australians stripped most of it but left the steam catapults intact, and I know the Chinese were using them for land based experiments.

[nradov]

The Chinese probably intend to skip steam catapults and go straight to electromagnetic (like on the new Ford class carriers). I don't think they want to deal with steam generation and plumbing.