Here's F-35Bs operating off USS Navy Wasp class vessels":
The Japanese carriers could probably carry 12 F-35Bs if the had to.
But the Chinese are building full size carriers and their second one is about to be launched.
They carry full on, fixed wing aircraft, not VTOL aircraft.
Here's their first one doing exercises in the Pacific last fall.
They are building carriers right now faster than we are (of course we are simply maintaining our count, while they are trying to play catch up). But they will have two of these by next year, and then they will come out with a regular cat and trap carrier two years later and another one of the full carriers like that two years after that.
An F-35B would be more than a match for those J-15s...but range is an issue when you have to vertically land and take off...although the F-35B would run the deck to help in the take off.
But the F-35C has already been to sea three times, passing its quals better than expected on full size US carriers.
Make no mistake...the Chinese fear the F-35s. The US will field a 5th genertion, stealth arcraft off of the big carriers and the MArine Amphibious assault ships starting next year for the MArines...two to three years later for the Navy.
Japan could start buying the Bravo F-35 for its carriers any time and have them within a couple of years.
That has the chinese worried.
Because if Japan can do it, then the Koreans can have them on their Dokdo class vessels, and the Aussies can have them on their two new Canberra class vessels.