According to CNN, China recently launched its third and most advanced aircraft carrier, making a major statement on its naval ambitions. The Fujian is China’s largest, most modern, and most powerful aircraft carrier to date, the jewel in the crown of an 80,000-ton military expansion that has grown its navy into the largest in the world.
Experts say China’s new combat systems, such as the Electromagnetic Catapult Assisted Launch System, are a sign that China is fast catching up to the United States and will allow it to fire more aircraft, faster speeds and more ammunition. That should be enough to give any potential adversary pause to think, especially given China’s growing aggressiveness in its territorial disputes with Japan in the East China Sea, Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea, and its repeated harassment of Taiwan.
Still, the launch of the Fujian ship with much fanfare is clearly a message from China to rivals, but analysts warn once morest believing too much hype.
For one, the Fujian may not enter service for the next three to four years, said Carl Schuster, a former U.S. Navy captain and former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, that even if it were in service, its The scale would also make it an obvious target, and any enemy would be acutely aware that sinking such an iconic ship would be both a military disaster and a morale blow for China.
In essence, the Fujian may be China’s largest ship, but it may not be the biggest problem on the minds of U.S. Navy commanders right now, experts say. Here are four types of ships owned by China that arguably pose a greater threat to U.S. naval dominance.
First, the Type 055 destroyer. Launched in 2017, these 13,000-ton stealth guided missile destroyers are considered by many to be the most powerful surface fighter jets in the world. Large enough to be considered a cruiser by NATO standards, the Type 055 is equipped with 112 vertical launch tubes that can be used to fire everything from anti-ship missiles to long-range land-attack missiles.
“The ship has a particularly complex design, stealth capabilities, radar and a large inventory of missiles. It is larger and more powerful than most US, Japanese and South Korean destroyers.” Timothy Heath, senior analyst at RAND Corporation, said in a statement. At the time, Beijing had launched two warships in one day, proving China’s impressive shipbuilding capabilities, he told CNN in 2018. A report by the Congressional Research Service in March said at least 10 Type 055s are believed to have been launched or under construction.
The Lhasa, the second of China’s five active Type 055 tanks, conducted exercises in the Sea of Japan amid rising tensions in Taiwan, last week with support from China’s state-run Global Times tabloid. According to the Global Times, “The ship has achieved full combat capability and demonstrated its capability in deterring possible foreign military interference in the Taiwan Strait at a time when the United States and Japan have been provoking repeated provocations over the Taiwan issue. China.”
Second, the Type 039 submarine. These Yuan-class submarines are nearly silent diesel-electric submarines with capabilities that might be overwhelmed by U.S. military planners. China has built 17 Type 39A/B submarines and plans to increase that total to 25 over the next three years, according to a 2021 U.S. Department of Defense report to Congress on Chinese military power. Schuster said the Type 039 SS provides a strong “defense in depth” in waters near China, and they appear to be developing some capabilities to engage U.S. forces further afield at sea. “
The submarines are equipped with Air Independent Propellers (AIPs), which means they don’t need to surface as frequently to get the air needed for diesel combustion, which can then power the batteries. “When operated on batteries, AIP-equipped submarines are nearly silent, with the only noise coming from shaft bearings, propellers and flow around the hull.” U.S. Naval Officers Michael Walker and Austin Krush in a 2018 U.S. Naval Institute report According to a report in the journal Proceedings.
China is pushing to launch more ultra-quiet submarines armed with anti-ship cruise missiles, the Defense Ministry report said.
A powerful attack method used by the Type 039 is to launch “wake homing” torpedoes from the stern or rear of the target vessel. The torpedo then followed the trail of the target ship before detonating near its propulsion and steering systems. Wake-guided torpedoes are particularly difficult to defend once morest because surface ships detect submarines and torpedoes through sound waves.
Third, merchant ships. Merchant ships may not be the first lethal naval capabilities that come to mind, but that’s their power.
To invade Taiwan, China would likely need to transport an invasion force of hundreds of thousands, with some analysts suggesting more than a million. Various analysts, as well as U.S. government reports, have concluded that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval fleet is not up to the task.
But China does have a large fleet of civilian ferries that can be quickly converted for military use, and may even have been designed for this possibility, it is said.
“China’s largest ferry shipbuilder publicly stated in 2015 that one of its largest roll-on/roll-off ferries was built for both military and civilian purposes, and one of China’s largest ferry operators was likewise described as having a dual military-civilian developing ideas,” Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander and now a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, wrote in a 2021 article for “War on the Rocks.” , he added, civilian ferry companies operating in the Yellow Sea and South China Sea have been organized into auxiliary units of the PLA.
Working with those numbers is amazing, Shugart said. He estimates that the use of civilian ships will add an additional 1.1 million tons of displacement to China, more than three times the displacement of all Chinese amphibious assault ships combined. Shugart noted that if China utilizes Hong Kong’s roll-on/roll-off vehicle carriers, it might receive an additional 370,000 tonnes of sea freight.
Is this enough to take Taiwan by force? It’s hard to know. But Shugart said it does answer the question, “How many transports (ships) does the Chinese military have? Probably, more than you think.”
Fourth, the maritime militia. The ferries are not the only so-called civilian vessels on the radar of military planners, and experts have also accused China of creating a maritime militia of more than a hundred vessels allegedly engaged in commercial fishing to enforce its mandate in the disputed waters. will.
The militia, which China even denies its existence, consists of at least 122 ships, possibly as many as 174, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, though the actual number might be much larger. When more than 200 Chinese fishing boats crowded the waters around Whitsunday Reef in the South China Sea in early 2021, various experts suspected militia involvement. Both China and the Philippines claim the reef, with the Philippines calling the presence of the vessels a “clearly provocative move”.
“The People’s Armed Forces maritime militia does not fish,” Schuster told CNN last year. “They have automatic weapons and reinforced hulls, which make them very dangerous at close range. Also, they have a top speed of regarding 18 to 22 knots, which is faster than 90 percent of all fishing boats in the world.”
According to a November report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative (CSIS), the militia has two main components: specialized militia vessels and actual fishing vessels employed by the Chinese military under a subsidy program. Professionals lead activities such as harassing foreign drillships or blocking foreign fishing vessels, while subsidized fishermen put pressure on numbers, the CSIS report said.
