If to consider the "ocean-going certified" surface combatants the PLAN have, you can omit anything before the 052s DDG and 054s FFG, from that numbers to deduce those needed for the fleet's original duties, there's even less active ships available for the expedition.
Indeed, the PLAN's expedition is stretching their small fleet of AO ships to their limit. In essence, the hull lifespan of those AO ships are burning out at a faster rate than their original design specification; however, all the hulls known to be in construction are warships from corvettes to LPDs, but no AO ships.
Now, the availability of AO ships is critical if to organize any battlegroup, the shortage of AO ships and no new designs slated for construction means the PLAN is still envisioning fights within the 1st island chain, where the lack of AO ships isn't that big of a penalty here.
So, when we see there's new AO ship hulls (at least 3 to 5, to replace the current ones and to expand) at shipyard in Shanghai or Dalian, then it'd be safe to estimate PLAN's first bona-fide carrier battlegroup should be a year or two away.
