[SauronOfMordor]

Over here we have an article about the competition for the US refueler contract. Boeing is competing against Northrop Grumman Corp., which is expected to offer its KC-30, a modified Airbus A330, at a discounted price. If Grumman loses the contract, Airbus might decide to buy the designs and tooling to produce refuelers for European militaries. Then later, they can sell to China

[Oztrich Boy]

If Grumman loses the contract, Airbus might decide to buy the designs and tooling to produce refuelers for European militaries.

Actually it's Northrop-Grumman who bought the designs of the A330-200 MRTT

[SauronOfMordor]

I just had a thought. What about a combination of a carrier and multiple Airbus-based aerial refuelers? Planes could take off from the carriers with max ordinance load and minimum fuel, fuel up in the air, and continue to their target, going back to the carrier only for more ordinance

[Jeff Head]

The Chinese fly and now license build a mopdernization of the Russian TU-16 badger bomber to this day. They have modified the design and used 14 of them for quite some time as refueling aircraft.

More recently that have purchased 8 IL-78 tanker aircraft from Russia...much more modern, much more capable.

[sukhoi-30mki]

China won't have the kind of organic aerial refuelling requirements that the USN will have given that it's carriers will primarily operate close to Chinese waters for atleast the next 10 years.Their SU-33s will have a good range of their own can be configured for buddy refuelling.If the Chinese do venture out into the Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea-they can always base IL-78
refuellers at their bases in Pakistan & Myanmar.