[Big read] Will the Chinese Navy or the US Navy rule the waves?

When the Chinese government announced that it was rebuilding a semi-finished former Soviet Union aircraft carrier for military purposes 13 years ago, then US assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell expressed his understanding for the move and claimed that both China and the US are wise enough to avoid conflict. 

But when the Fujian, a Chinese aircraft carrier with similar attributes as the most advanced US aircraft carriers today, made its first public appearance in May, the same magnanimity was nowhere to be seen in US public opinion.     

Aside from the overall tension in China-US relations, which has resulted in more contradictions and animosity between both sides, the Chinese Navy’s breakneck speed of hardware progress in the last decade, as embodied by its aircraft carriers, has made the US much more cautious of its strategic adversary.  

Military experts opined that over the last few years, the Chinese Navy has gradually progressed from a brown-water navy whose primary strategic objective is near-shore defence, to a blue-water one that is capable of deploying task forces to distant seas around the world. 

The so-called distant seas generally refer to the deep blue seas that are more than 200 nautical miles offshore. For most of its 75 years, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was a brown-water navy that was only capable of near-shore battles. The 2015 China’s Military Strategy white paper was the first to mention PLAN’s strategic transformation and called for a gradual shift of its focus from “offshore waters defence” to a combination of “offshore waters defence” with “open seas protection”. 

In recent years, as disputes in the South China Sea continue and official exchanges between both sides of the Taiwan Strait ground to a halt after the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan took power, the Taiwan problem became the biggest flashpoint in the region. As China-US ties continue to hit new lows, preparing for potential confrontations has become the main driver of the Chinese Navy’s modernisation efforts.  

In 2009, during the 60th anniversary of its founding, the Chinese Navy accelerated its efforts to evolve into a blue-water navy. 

James Holmes, who heads the department of strategy and policy at the US Naval War College, told Lianhe Zaobao that the Chinese Navy has made great strides in its open seas fighting capabilities over the last 15 years. This includes areas such as its air force, air defence, anti-submarine warfare and long-range maritime replenishment. 

During this period, the Chinese Navy launched or commissioned a big batch of large tonnage warships with superior performance and technology, including three aircraft carriers, eight Type 055 10,000 tonne-class stealth guided-missile destroyers, nine massive multi-purpose replenishment ships, and dozens of Type 052D destroyers and Type 054A frigates. At the same time, it has continued to deploy naval escort fleets to the Gulf of Aden and is more focused on combat training on the open seas.  

Based on a report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the total weight of naval vessels launched by the Chinese Navy between 2014 and 2018 reached 678,000 tonnes, more than the navies of France, Germany, India, Italy, South Korea and Spain.  

Yuan Jingdong, director of the China and Asia Security Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told Lianhe Zaobao that the most significant achievement made by the Chinese Navy is that it now has around 350 ships, making it the largest navy in the world.

In April 2018, when General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and chairman of the Central Military Commission Xi Jinping inspected naval units in the South China Sea, he said that “the task of building a strong navy has never been as urgent as it is today” and called for “more efforts to build the PLAN into a world-class force”.

To military observers, China needs both first-class hardware and the capabilities to defeat top-rate navies to qualify as a world-class naval force. The key consideration for this is whether the PLA can resist US Navy (USN) forces or prevent the US military from intervening in Taiwan, in the event that armed conflicts break out in its region of the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait. 

While the Chinese Navy already has two commissioned aircraft carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, that have open-sea fighting capabilities, they are hampered by the limited number of aircraft they carry. Additionally, these aircraft can only be launched via ski-jump take-offs, preventing the vessels from being equipped with fixed-wing early warning aircraft. Hence, most military experts consider these two aircraft carriers to have limited fighting powers.

But this will no longer be the case after the Fujian enters service. Following its sea trial in May, the general consensus is that the Chinese Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier will substantially boost its fighting powers.

The Fujian’s air wing is expected to mainly comprise J-15 and J35 fighter planes, with the latter boasting a stealth design. At the same time, it will also carry KJ-600 airborne early warning aircraft that require catapult take-offs.   

Early warning aircraft are essential for aircraft carrier strike groups that can engage in battles independently far offshore. Compared with the Z18-J naval airborne early warning helicopter already in service with the PLAN, the KJ-600 can fly faster and at higher altitudes. It can also remain airborne for much longer, thereby extending the aircraft carrier’s early warning coverage by a few hundred kilometres and providing the entire carrier strike group with a much bigger yet more closely-knit safety net.

Some analysts believe that after the Fujian enters service, the Chinese Navy would be able to maintain a presence in the waters to the east of Taiwan, and even launch amphibious landings on the eastern side of the island. 

While the expected commissioning of the Fujian would be a shot in the arm for the Chinese Navy’s aim to become a blue-water naval force, some analysts think that the aircraft carrier alone is insufficient to alter the balance of naval power in the Western Pacific in order for the Chinese Navy to shake off its first island chain shackles. 

In an interview with the Voice of America (VOA), Carl Schuster, former director of operations at the Joint Intelligence Centre of the US Pacific Command, said that the Fujian is still no match for US aircraft carriers in terms of numbers and capabilities, so it is only able to go on the offensive briefly outside the first island chain. 

The US has 11 nuclear-powered supercarriers in service, five of which showed up in the Western Pacific in February. In an interview, Chinese military expert Zhang Junshe said that US aircraft carriers still enjoy an absolute advantage.

Yuan from SIPRI cautioned that with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and long-range precision strike weapons, aircraft carriers can become rather vulnerable to attacks. So while the Chinese Navy has raised its standards over the last few years, it is still in the early stages of developing effective aircraft carrier task forces.

He added, “The US Navy has been involved in all sorts of military operations almost incessantly since the end of the Second World War, so it is very experienced in sailing around the world and carrying out a variety of tasks, all of which require seamless and effective command and control, logistic support, jointness and more, which the PLAN is far short of.”

Hence, Yuan believes that combat experience is the biggest gap that the Chinese Navy needs to plug to become a first-class navy.  

Aside from comparing military hardware, military experts also believe that China’s geographical advantage in the Western Pacific cannot be overlooked.

Holmes from the US Naval War College pointed out that a simple and direct comparison of aircraft carriers would fundamentally distort the nature of potential wars in the Western Pacific, as battles involve more than figures on paper. Since they occur in the physical world, China’s home ground advantage has to be adequately accounted for. 

In the parts of the Western Pacific that are close to the Chinese mainland, the Chinese air force’s J-20 and J16-fighters, and KJ-500 airborne early warning aircrafts will provide the PLAN with open-sea air supremacy. At the same time, the Chinese rocket force has a series of long-range ballistic missiles that can threaten US military bases and surface fleets in the region.  

Holmes emphasised that this is an age of joint sea power, when not just the navy but the air force, army and rocket force work together to shape events at sea. He added, “It’s actually misleading to concentrate on a particular armed service to the exclusion of others.” 

In a battlespace as vast as the Pacific, it is no easy feat to accurately detect moving aircraft carriers and target them with long-range missiles. Advanced reconnaissance and surveillance systems are needed to close the kill chain between detection, tracking, targeting and striking.

In April, the PLA Strategic Support Force was dissolved and its components reorganised into the Information Support Force, Aerospace Force and Cyberspace Force. 

Chinese military expert Cao Weidong pointed out that the move signalled the PLA’s growing emphasis on joint operations and battlefield information sensing. Through resource consolidation, its navy, air force and rocket force can more effectively obtain interoperable information resources, improving their coordination with other military branches. At the same time, China is also increasing the amount of joint training among its various military services and arms.

Holmes said, “The Chinese Navy has built a fleet that is capable of operating under the protective cover of shore-based firepower. That symbiosis between sea- and shore-based power is tough to beat.”

Logistics was one of the Chinese Navy’s biggest barriers in its bid to operate far offshore. But things have changed following its acquisition of seven Type 903A and two Type 901 multi-purpose replenishment vessels since 2009. 

These ships provide battleships out at sea with fuel, ammunition, fresh water and food to extend their operational range. The quantity and performance of replenishment vessels largely determine how far out the Chinese Navy can venture and how long its warships can continue to do battle there.   

At the end of April, during the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Navy’s founding and in conjunction with China’s hosting of this year’s Western Pacific Naval Symposium, Chinese authorities invited local and foreign media to Qingdao, an important part of the country’s sea defence, for a closer look at many of its main warships that are in service. 

During the media event, a Lianhe Zaobao journalist was able to board the Kekexilihu, a Type 903A multi-purpose replenishment ship. Entering service in 2019, the ship has since undertaken several missions to distant waters, including two naval escort stints in the Gulf of Aden, a joint naval exercise in South Africa with naval units from Russia and South Africa, and a combat exercise in the Western Pacific.

The massive ship has a displacement of about 20,000 tonnes, making it much bigger than main warships such as destroyers. The newly developed designated fuel resupply system on board is said to greatly boost resupply efficiency. 

On the middle deck, there is a supply gantry at the front and rear, and a large crane on each side. Although the deck is densely packed with various resupply equipment, there is still ample space for machinery such as forklifts to operate.

According to the sailors on board, the ship can carry out operations to replenish diesel, fresh water, aviation fuel, ammunition and food horizontally, longitudinally, vertically and in parallel. It can also carry out multi-directional replenishment on both its sides concurrently, and can complete fleet replenishment missions in complex situations.

However, the soldiers did not disclose the limits of sea conditions in which the ship can still conduct replenishment operations and whether the ship is fast enough to keep up with the main fleet. According to Janes Fighting Ships, the Type 903A replenishment ship has a top speed of 19 knots (1 knot equals 1.852 kilometres per hour), allowing it to keep up with the main fleet. Its commissioning means that the Chinese Navy basically has what it takes to operate in distant waters. 

The media event excluded a closer look at the even more advanced Type 901 replenishment ship. This type, which has a displacement of nearly 50,000 tonnes, is nearly double the size of the Type 903A. It is equipped with two transport helicopters on deck and can move even faster, so Chinese military fans have endearingly nicknamed it the “wet nurse of aircraft carriers”.

Aside from surface weaponry, underwater capabilities are also a critical component in evaluating modern navies.

In a VOA interview, Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, shared his analysis that any potential conflict between China and the US in the Taiwan Strait might occur under water, that is to say that any attempt by China to sink an American battleship might primarily occur below the water surface. Meanwhile, the US would also have to rely on its submarines to resist Chinese submarines, since this type of warfare is least affected by China’s home ground advantage. 

Both China and the US have massive fleets of submarines. According to the US Department of Defense’s 2022 China Military Power Report, the PLAN operates six nuclear-powered attack submarines, six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and 44 conventional-powered submarines. This makes its fleet the largest in Asia and third biggest in the world.  

In November 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that the era of total US submarine dominance over China is ending as China equips its submarines with new noise-reducing technology, builds a “Underwater Great Wall” underwater sensor networks, and expands its submarine fleet. 

Yuan from SIPRI feels that even though China’s submarine fleet remains a work in progress, it is already an important part of the Chinese Navy’s strategy to prevent the USN from intervening in the Taiwan Strait. 

But Holmes from the US Naval War College pointed out that even though the Chinese Navy has made significant improvements in terms of hardware and in training mariners, it is still weak in anti-submarine warfare.

Public data show that the US has 67 nuclear-powered submarines in service, of which 49 are attack submarines. Additionally, the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force is recognised for its experience in anti-submarine warfare and the noise performance of its conventional-powered submarines. The US and the UK would also be supplying Australia with nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS trilateral security partnership.  

VOA also referred to an article written by J. Michael Dahm, senior researcher at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a former US naval intelligence officer. According to Dahm, by considering the propagation of sound under water, deep-lying submarines are in the best position to track other submarines. For now, there is nothing to suggest that Chinese submarines are sufficiently quiet and have sonars that are sophisticated enough to engage in underwater anti-submarine warfare. Therefore, Dahm expects the US and its allies to maintain their underwater superiority in the 2030s.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “中国特稿：中国海军“下饺子” 从黄水加速航向蓝海”.

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