I think I will stick with my original prediction from years back - the Chinese will build a second carrier at one of the Southern yards at around a similar time to the Liaoning mod being built in Dalian.
The Dalian build, as the name suggests, will be a modest to heavily modified ship, but one which is unmistakably based on the Varyag/Liaoning baseline deisgn.
The Jiangnan build will be a lot more ambitious and may well look more like the new QEII class from the UK or be uniquely different.
These two ships, along with the Liaoning, will form the PLAN's testing, evaluation and training fleet.
Don't let the name fool you, all three will be fully combat capable, but since the PLAN isn't at war with anyone, or is predicted to be so anytime in the foreseeable future, these three ships will spend the lion share of their lives in or around home waters, conducting testing, evaluation and training missions rather than being sent out on patrols like western and Russian carriers.
When China is ready to start building the next gen follow-on class of carriers, I would expect one or all of these ships to have already first been used to test out and fine tune many of the new technologies intended for the new carrier.
As such, I fully expect one or all of them to one day be retrofitted with cats/EMALs, new gen defensive weapons and sensors etc.
Once the next gen of PLAN carriers start coming on line, one or more of these three carriers will probably be formally turned into a training and/or test ship. They will remain combat capable, but will probably be tasked with training and act as an operational strategic reserve for most of their service lives.
Basically, they will be full-time training carriers that can be pressed into action at short notice if a crises develops and China needs more carriers.
It will be the next gen carriers that will be forward deployed to foreign bases and/or regularly sent far from home on long patrols.
