Ahhh, yes i remenber when there were reports from the Russian media that said because Russia refused to sell China arresting gears that China wouldn't be able to build it herself. And guess what happened ?
If we make a Vikramaditya vs. Liaoning comparison.
CV-16 Liaoning
304m long
72m wide
10,5m draught
65000 ton
2200 crew
30 knots speed
16 to 24 Shenyang J-15
R-33 INS Vikramaditya
284m long
60m wide
9,5m draught
45400 ton
1600 crew
30 knots speed
16 MiG-29K Fulcrum-D
The Liaoning is bigger than the Vikramaditya meaning it can carry more food, fuel and crew and has space for recreation for the crew. The Liaoning has a bar, gym, postal office and even a small supermarket on board. And during the refit of the Liaoning they have taken away almost all of the weapons systems of the original design. Meaning the ship has become lighter and more fuel efficient and has opened up space inside for storage of food and weapons. Extending its endurance at sea. The Vikramaditya also has all of her weapons removed, but they also added a lot to the structure too like the ski jump or the extention to the width of the flight deck and the arresting system that was not part of the original design. So there may even have been a net gain in weight for the Vikramaditya.
The problem with the Vikramaditya starts with her oversized and missed placed island has eaten up most of the space on the flight deck. The elevators that are placed in the middle of the flight deck has further robbed it of space. The position of the elevators has further eaten up space in the hanger deck that are 30% smaller then that of the Liaoning to begin with. The flightdeck of the Vikramaditya doesn't have any jet blast deflectors meaning that when planes take off they would need to clear the deck far behind it to avoid getting burned by the 1300°C jet blasts from the MiG-29K's. Or they will have to use the back launch position on the Vikramaditya all the time. Because the elevators are in the middle of the flight deck and not on the side means that aircraft can't come up from the hangar deck when airplanes are taking off or landing. And vice versa when planes are coming up from the hangar deck there can't be any flight ops on the flight deck. There is no space between the island and the runway leaving very little room for the deck crew to work. The MiG-29K's can only come up from the front elevator next to the island and not the back one where only helicopters can come up because its too small. I don't know if the Russians has expanded the aviation fuel tanks on the Vikramaditya, if not then its going to be very hard to maintain a high operational tempo on the Vikramaditya as the ship will run out of aviation fuel just after a few sorties! Remenber that 16 MiG-29K's guzzle up a whole lot more fuel then 12 Yak-38 Forgers. So far i haven't read anything about the Russians expanding the amount of aviation fuel the ship can carry.
The Liaoning doesn't have any of these problems !
Now the J-15 vs MiG-29K
Shenyang J-15 (taken from the SU-33)
21,9m long
max take off weight: 33000kg
max speed mach 2,17
max range 3000km
service ceiling 17000m
climb rate 48,500 ft/min
T/W 0,83
stall speed 240 km/h
MiG-29K Fulcrum-D
17,3m long
max take off weight: 24500kg
max speed mach 2+
max range 2100km
service ceiling 17500m
climb rate 65,000 ft/min
T/W 0,97
stall speed 246 km/h
based on these few stats we can say that:
in favor of the J-15: longer range, lower stall speed, heavier payload
in favor of the MiG-29K: higher service ceiling, faster climb rate, higher T/W ratio.
Both are multi-role neither is battle tested.
Note that the J-15 numbers are taken from the SU-33 so its not a completely accurate comparison.