Peter
I'm well aware that the UK has (or will have 2 carriers)- but they were planned and ordered 15-+years ago. I don't think that they will ever build another - in fact there is a substantial body of UK military opinion that thinks the two new ones are an expensive mistake and an expensive distraction (please don't start that argument on this thread tho - there's a whole 277 page thread for that).
Only the USA is totally committed to building carriers going forward - the Chinese are (slowly) building proof of concept vessels but are decades away from a carrier fleet. The Russians have given up, the French carrier will be in service for a long time but no plans to add to the number
AFAIK and most other nations eg Japan) seem to be happy with ships that can operate helicopters and maybe a handful of VTOL aircraft.
In my view the S China Sea is not a great place for carriers - it's surrounded by land and you can build airfields faster and cheaper than you can build a carrier. If we're talking the Indian Ocean or the Pacific its possible to argue that carriers have real value