Another view on China's Carrier. China does not currently possess any carrier-capable fixed-wing aircraft.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/world/asia/china-shows-off-an-aircraft-carrier-but-experts-are-skeptical.html
Maybe or maybe not. They have had 20 plus years to study and work on the carrier aircraft problem. Thanks to the RAN scrapping the HMAS Melbourne and failing to remove vital equipment. Prior to it going to China to be broken up in 1985.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Melbourne_(R21)
The ship was not scrapped immediately; instead she was studied by Chinese naval architects and engineers as part of the nation's top-secret carrier development program.[6] However, it is unclear whether the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) orchestrated the acquisition of Melbourne or simply took advantage of the situation; Rear Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong, who is both the son of PLAN founder Zhang Aiping and a staff member at the National Defence College, has stated that the Navy was unaware of the purchase until Melbourne first arrived at Guangzhou.[161] Melbourne was the largest warship any of the Chinese experts had seen, and they were surprised by the amount of equipment which was still in place.
The PLAN subsequently arranged for the ship's flight deck and all the equipment associated with flying operations to be removed so that they could be studied in depth.[156] Reports have circulated that either a replica of the flight deck, or the deck itself, was used for clandestine training of People's Liberation Army Navy pilots in carrier flight operations.[6] It has also been claimed that the Royal Australian Navy received and "politely rejected" a request from the PLAN for blueprints of the ship's steam catapult.[156]
The carrier was not dismantled for many years; according to some rumours she was not completely broken up until 2002.[144] A 2012 article in Jane's Navy International stated that the large quantity of equipment recovered from Melbourne "undoubtedly helped" Admiral Liu Hau-qing secure the Chinese Government's support for his proposal to initiate a program to develop aircraft carriers for the Navy.[156
The Kiev 1994 and the Minsk in 1996 prior to the aquisition of what is the present PLAN carrier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_aircraft_carrier_Minsk