7th Fleet area of operations, rendezvous with a combat rubber raiding craft, attached to U.S. 2, 2021) The Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Ohio (SSGN 726), deployed to U.S. “The PLAN is not receiving junk from China’s shipbuilding industry but rather increasingly sophisticated, capable vessels,” Andrew Erickson, a professor at the US Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute, wrote in a February paper. Some of those will be the equal or better of anything the US or other naval powers can put in the water. “Already commanding the world’s largest naval force, the People’s Republic of China is building modern surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, amphibious assault ships, ballistic nuclear missile submarines, large coast guard cutters, and polar icebreakers at alarming speed.” “China’s navy battle force has more than tripled in size in only two decades,” read a December report by the leaders of the US Navy, Marines and Coast Guard. Go back to 2000, and the numbers are even more stark. In 2015, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) had 255 battle force ships in its fleet, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).Īs of the end of 2020, it had 360, over 60 more than the US Navy, according to an ONI forecast.įour years from now, the PLAN will have 400 battle force ships, the ONI predicts. And now it’s working to make it formidable far from its shores. At some point between 2015 and today, China has assembled the world’s largest naval force. He had ordered investments in shipyards and technology that continue at pace today.īy at least one measurement, Xi’s plan has worked. In 2015, Xi undertook a sweeping project to turn the PLA into a world-class fighting force, the peer of the United States military. China was already in the midst of a shipbuilding spree like few the world has ever seen.
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