Nah, I don't see any reason why a near seas deployment should have to involve any less time than a far seas deployment or spend any significantly less time at sea. There is also no point to actively "deploy" a carrier to just mostly sit at a home port. Who even does that? A near seas deployment would involve the southern part of the SCS, the Philippine Sea, or the east side of the Ryukyu Islands. Any closer and there is no point; you would have land-based fighter coverage already. A carrier's job is power projection, not baby-sitting its home naval base. That's just below the level of usefulness as compared to deploying a carrier into the Taiwan Strait.
During peacetime, I see the purpose of retaining the majority of the carriers at home and only occasionally conducting relatively short duration near water patrols, would be to act as a home fleet and fleet in being as a form of deterrence (or occasional diplomatic/military signalling), and to provide a short notice surge capability in case of a crisis (including but not limited to a high intensity local/regional war).
Deploying a carrier continuously at sea at China's near waters/around first island chain during peacetime IMO is unnecessary because any interests that may be threatened there could be responded to within a couple days transit (at most) by any carrier from their homeport, and depending on the location and the crisis could even be responded to land based air power or long range missiles.
Notice that I used the phrase "you would have to", not "you have been trying to". And that is in fact what you would have to do in order to make a few days matter in a conflict scenario in which more distantly deployed carriers are somehow less available to the PLAN than nearby deployed carriers.
I'm not saying that a few days of transit time will matter for a carrier stationed in blue water if they were responding to a conflict scenario.
I am talking about the overall peacetime availability of the Navy to surge carriers available for a relatively short period of time in a high intensity conflict scenario, when using different deployment patterns. One of the parameters I've assumed in this case, is that the Navy will always want to have 1 carrier deployed at sea continuously in blue water in the Indian Ocean region.
Let's use an example of 7 carriers, of which 1 is constantly being cycled in a multi year refit, meaning there are technically only 6 "available" carriers.
In my proposal, I'm thinking of the 6 carriers, only 1 carrier will be deployed at sea continuously for many months in a manner that is away from homeport/specialized support facilities for an extended period (and I envision its area of patrol to be in the Indian Ocean), and the other 5 carriers would remain at home, in various stages of minor maintenance, training, and conducting relatively short duration (let's say 1 month max) at sea deployments at China's near waters. Having 5 carriers at home, of which most are at various maintenance or training duties and of which only 1 or two are conducting relatively short duration deployments at China's near waters at any one time intermittently, IMO would allow 3-4 of the 5 to be surge deployed at very short notice.
OTOH, in an alternative proposal, let's consider the same 6 carriers but where 2 carriers are deployed at sea continuously, both for many months. They may both be deployed continuously in the Indian Ocean, or one in the Indian Ocean and one in near waters, but the key point is that both are at sea continuously for the same relatively long period. In this proposal, there will be 4 carriers at home for various minor maintenance and training duties (and possibly also being available to conduct short duration near sea deployments). However, given 2 of the 6 carriers are always continuously at sea, it means each the 4 carriers at home (which will have been cycled through continuous at sea deployments previous to their at home stint for maintenance or training) will almost definitely require a longer maintenance or training to recover from the longer continuous at sea deployments that they've experienced compared to if only 1 of the 6 carriers are always continuously at sea in the previous proposal, and so I believe "only" 1-2 of those 4 at home carriers would be available to surge at short notice to near waters. Of course, in this proposal, there will already be 2 of the 6 carriers be deployed at sea and presumably ready to return to China's near waters (if it was deployed in blue water) or to start operations immediately (if it was deployed in near waters to begin with), and that may confer some of its own advantages such as the immediacy of being able to start operations.
But in this case I'm interested in maximizing the number of carriers available for surge, while retaining a minimal blue water/continuous at sea presence through the form of 1 single carrier (at the Indian Ocean).
So, I think for a fleet of 6 available carriers, having 1 continuously deployed carrier (in blue water in this case, in the Indian Ocean) while having 5 carriers at home (doing various maintenance, training duties, and occasional short duration patrols) allows for a significantly greater short notice near water surge capability, of up to 2 additional carriers... compared to having 2 continuously deployed carriers (whether in blue water or near water) while having 4 carriers at home (doing various maintenance, training duties, with or without short duration patrols).
I imagine if we have any disagreement here, it is probably more on the strategic/political level of the rationale of whether it is necessary or unnecessary to continuously deploy a carrier at sea in China's near waters.
I think the logic behind my 3-4 surge capability for 1 out of 6 continuously deployed carrier, versus 1-2 surge capability for 2 out of 6 continuously deployed carriers is relatively sound.