Carriers be they USA, Japan, or Chinese are formidable instruments to project force at distance in conventional warfare. In total conflict between nuclear forces theirs as ours are dead meat. If they can be seen from space they will die from space or rockets launched from surface ships or land. If you can see them you can kill them be it theirs our ours if you go nuclear.
The real ships of total destruction are our “boomers” Each one of the subs has the capability of destroying any nation as a functioning society. We have many. Oddly the purpose of our boomers is the supposition that we receive a first strike that takes out our missiles and aircraft for a counter strike. They might get our aircraft, they will not get all our hardened missiles in silos. Even if they did achieve this unlikely act, our boomers would destroy them.
Boomers are the ultimate weapon of destruction. From the depths of the arctic, the Atlantic and Pacific lurk total destruction for any nation that attacks us. Even if these boomers are attacked by hunter killer subs they would need to take every damn one of them out in a coordinated attack on our missiles and land based aircraft to avoid total destruction. Our enemies do not have this capability. If our boomers started dying we would launch our land based missiles and aircraft.
In a war of threats that the Chinese prefer (See the Philippines) these will be a deterrent. Especially if they build more than 2. Japan’s big problem is birthrate. You can’t really have 70 year-old pilots
The biggest threat to carriers are the lack of naval repair facilities and dry docks, not missiles. If a carrier limps back to port and there is no place to repair it then that is a soft kill. Thanks to Free Traitors™ our industrial base is not capable of sustaining a protracted naval war. Thanks Free Traitors™.