ON the surface, the photo seems somewhat bland. It’s your typical corporate shot — a bunch of guys looking attentive around a boardroom table. But, in the background, on the big screen, is something likely to make the US Navy sit up and take notice.

The image in the Chinese Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) promotional shot is distant. Therefore it’s somewhat blurry.

But there’s little doubt as to what it shows.

Scattered in the distance is a protective fleet of China’s most advanced destroyers. Then there are the aircraft carriers Liaoning and ‘Type 001A’. We don’t yet know the name of China’s most recently completed carrier, which put to sea for the first time in May.

They’re flanking something as-yet unseen.

It’s an artist’s impression.

Of a new ship.

A big one.

It’s an aircraft carrier with a completely flat deck. There’s no sign of the simple ski-ramps used to sling aircraft into the sky on China’s two other carriers.

Instead, there are what appears to be three large catapults servicing what appears to be J-15 fighter jets and a new type of radar early warning aircraft.