Earlier this month the US Congressional Research Service released a 81-page report titled China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress. In its summary the report said China’s military modernization effort, including its naval modernization effort, is the top focus of US defence planning and budgeting.
China’s naval modernization effort has been underway for about 30 years, since the early to mid-1990s, and has transformed the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) into a much more modern and capable force. The PLA-N is a formidable military force within China’s near-seas region, and it is conducting a growing number of operations in the broader waters of the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and waters around Europe.
The PLA-N is, by far, the largest of any country in East Asia, and sometime between 2015 and 2020 it surpassed the US Navy in numbers of battle force ships, meaning the types of ships that count toward the quoted size of the US Navy. The US Department of Defense states that the PLA-N “is the largest navy in the world with a battle force of over 370 platforms, including major surface combatants, submarines, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, aircraft carriers, and fleet auxiliaries. Notably, this figure does not include approximately 60 Houbei-class patrol combatants that carry anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM). The… overall battle force [of the PLA-N] is expected to grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030.” The US Navy, by comparison, included 296 battle force ships as of 12 August 2024, and the US Navy’s FY2025 budget submission projects that the Navy will include 294 battle force ships by the end of FY2030. US military officials and other observers are expressing concern or alarm regarding the pace of China’s naval shipbuilding effort, the capacity of China’s shipbuilding industry compared with the capacity of the US shipbuilding industry, and trend lines regarding the relative sizes and capabilities of the PLA-N and the US Navy.
China’s naval modernisation effort encompasses a wide array of ship, aircraft, weapon, and C4ISR (command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) acquisition programs, as well as improvements in logistics, doctrine, personnel quality, education and training, and exercises. The PLA-N has certain limitations and weaknesses, which it is working to overcome. China’s military modernisation effort, including its naval modernisation effort, is assessed as being aimed at developing capabilities for, among other things, addressing the situation with Taiwan militarily, if need be; achieving a greater degree of control or domination over China’s near-seas region, particularly the South China Sea; defending China’s commercial sea lines of communication (SLOCs), particularly those linking China to the Persian Gulf; displacing US influence in the Western Pacific; and asserting China’s status as the leading regional power and a major world power. Observers believe China wants its navy to be capable of acting as part of an anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) force—a force that can deter US intervention in a conflict in China’s near-seas region over Taiwan or some other issue, or failing that, delay the arrival or reduce the effectiveness of intervening US forces.
The US Navy has taken a number of actions to counter China’s naval modernisation effort. Among other things, the US Navy has shifted a greater percentage of its fleet to the Pacific; assigned its most-capable new ships and aircraft to the Pacific; maintained or increased general presence operations, training and developmental exercises, and engagement and cooperation with allied and other navies in the Indo-Pacific; increased the planned future size of the Navy; initiated, increased, or accelerated numerous programs for developing new military technologies and acquiring new ships, aircraft, unmanned vehicles, and weapons; and developed new operational concepts for countering China’s maritime A2/AD forces.
The report says the issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify the Biden Administration’s proposed US Navy plans, budgets, and programs for responding to China’s naval modernisation effort.
The full report can be downloaded at https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33153
