it is also worth noting that the chinese are probably going to be fairly confident the flight deck works at least in terms of layout and materials, since they mocked it up inland and did a lot of operational testing of the mockup to refine things. they did the same with Liaoning and Shandong (something that mystified some people when they were doing it, because "why are they flying J-15's off the top of a building?") such facilities also double as training centers for the deck crews later.
as far as the sea trials go.. the USnavy has an extensive set of trials they put new carriers through before an aircraft ever touches its deck. speed tests, steering tests, maneuverability tests, shock tests using depth charges, not to mention the testing of the various individual systems inside the ship. and if they find anything wrong, they go back to dock, do (sometimes extensive) repair work, and go out and do it all again until it has a clean bill of health. only then do they take on part of the airwing and start testing aircraft operations.