It has those AESAs because that is basically the highest place you can mount such huge AESAs, which easily eclipses the size, power and range of anything airborne.
The radar horizon from those arrays are going to be incredible, so it makes sense for the PLAN to want to put their biggest and best radar on it to maximise the benefit.
With modern data links and CEC, if one ship on the fleet can see something, every ship in the fleet in range can shoot it. Having no long range missiles on the carrier itself is entirely irrelevant.
The X-band AESAs are even higher, they are the two smaller holes above the two larger holes.
The rectangular panels even higher fore, aft, port and starboard are ECM panels. There are only two of them in the 055 located under the bridge wing. This thing is gonna jam.
On the neck to the crown are eight small rectangles. These are likely to be CEC, similar size and shape except for the mountings, to other units in other ships (Liaoning, Shandong, 055 and 075). However, these other ships only have four while this is eight.
The stuff and panels in the crown above the CEC should be ESM and datalinks. The top part should be ESM and topped with a TACAN.
Even the older Shandong remains impressive, given that its high mounted Type 346A radars are still topped with two Type 364 radars and the Type 382. There are more domes than I would think that are SATCOMs, so there is a possibility that another pair of domes might be Type 366 radars. The CEC units are the four small rectangles in the neck leading to the Type 382, and you have four similar units on the integrated mast of the Type 055.
Look at that **flag**.. Getting ready for videos, pictures and eventual launch.
