Inside Asia's arms race: China near 'breakthroughs' with nuclear-armed submarines, report says
Chinese
Navy's nuclear-powered submarine Long March 11 takes part in a naval
parade off the eastern port city of Qingdao, to mark the 70th
anniversary of the founding of Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy,
China, April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
HONG
KONG, Oct 9 (Reuters) - A submarine arms race is intensifying as China
embarks on production of a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines
that for the first time are expected to pose a challenge to growing U.S.
and allied efforts to track them.
Analysts
and regional defence attaches say evidence is mounting that China is on
track to have its Type 096 ballistic missile submarine operational
before the end of the decade, with breakthroughs in its quietness aided
in part by Russian technology.
Research
discussed at a conference in May at the U.S. Naval War College and
published in August by the college's China Maritime Studies Institute
predicts the new vessels will be far harder to keep tabs on. That
conclusion is credible, according to seven analysts and three Asia-based
military attaches.
"The
Type 096s are going to be a nightmare," said retired submariner and
naval technical intelligence analyst Christopher Carlson, one of the
researchers. "They are going to be very, very hard to detect."
The
discreet effort to track China's nuclear-powered and -armed ballistic
missile submarines, known as SSBNs, is one of the core drivers of
increased deployments and contingency planning by the U.S. Navy and
other militaries across the Indo-Pacific region. That drive is expected
to intensify when Type 096s enter service.
The Chinese navy is routinely staging fully armed nuclear deterrence patrols
with its older Type 094 boats out of Hainan Island in the South China
Sea, the Pentagon said in November, much like patrols operated for years
by the United States, Britain, Russia and France.
But
the Type 094s, which carry China's most advanced submarine-launched
JL-3 missile, are considered relatively noisy - a major handicap for
military submarines.
The
paper notes that the Type 096 submarine will compare to
state-of-the-art Russian submarines in terms of stealth, sensors and
weapons. It said that jump in capabilities would have "profound"
implications for the U.S. and its Indo-Pacific allies.
Based
partly on Chinese military journals, internal speeches by senior
People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers and patent data, the paper
charts more than 50 years of the PLA navy's often-glacial nuclear
submarine development.
It
contains satellite imagery taken in November at China's new Huludao
shipyard showing pressure hull sections for a large submarine being
worked up. That puts construction on schedule to have the boats
operational by 2030, the timeline stated in the Pentagon's annual
reports on China's military.
The
research also details potential breakthroughs in specific areas,
including pump-jet propulsion and internal quieting devices, based on
"imitative innovation" of Russian technology.
Neither the Russian nor the Chinese defence ministries responded to Reuters' requests for comment.
The
vessel is likely to be significantly larger than the Type 094, allowing
it to contain an internal "raft" mounted on complex rubber supports to
dampen engine noise and other sounds, similar to Russian designs.
Carlson
told Reuters he did not believe China had obtained Russia's "crown
jewels" - its very latest technology - but would be producing a
submarine stealthy enough to compare to Moscow's Improved Akula boats.
"We have a hard time finding and tracking the Improved Akulas as it is," Carlson said.
Singapore-based
defence scholar Collin Koh said the research opened a window on
discreet research projects to improve China's SSBNs as well as boosting
its anti-submarine warfare capabilities.
"They
know they are behind the curve so they are trying to play catch-up in
terms of quieting and propulsion," said Koh, of Singapore's S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Carlson
said he believed China's strategists would, like Russia, keep SSBNs
within protective "bastions" close to its coasts, utilising recently
fortified holdings in the disputed South China Sea.
ECHO OF THE COLD WAR
The prospect of advanced SSBNs will significantly complicate an already intense subsurface surveillance battle.
In
an echo of the Cold War-era effort to hunt for Soviet "boomers", the
tracking of Chinese submarines is increasingly an international effort,
with the Japanese and Indian militaries assisting the United States,
Australia and Britain, analysts and military attaches say.
Anti-submarine
warfare drills are increasing, as are deployments of sub-hunting P-8
Poseidon aircraft around Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.
The
United States, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, Britain and New
Zealand operate the advanced plane, which use sonobuoys and other more
advanced techniques, such as scanning the ocean surface, to find
submarines far below.
The United States is also carrying out the biggest overhaul of its top-secret undersea surveillance network since the 1950s to combat China's growing presence, Reuters reported in September.
The
prospect of a quieter Chinese SSBN is driving, in part, the AUKUS deal
among Australia, Britain and the U.S., which will see increased
deployments of British and U.S. attack submarines to Western Australia.
By the 2030s, Australia expects to launch its first nuclear-powered
attack submarines with British technology.
"We
are at a fascinating point here," said Alexander Neill, a
Singapore-based defence analyst. "China is on track with a new
generation of submarine ahead of the first AUKUS boats - even if they
are at parity in terms of capability, that is highly significant," said
Neill, an adjunct fellow at Hawaii's Pacific Forum think-tank.
Even
if China's submarine force reaches technological parity, it will need
to train aggressively and intensively over the next decade to match
AUKUS capabilities, he added.
Vasily
Kashin, a Moscow-based Chinese military scholar at HSE University, said
it was possible Chinese engineers had made the breakthroughs described
in the report.
Although
China most likely obtained some key Russian technology in the 1990s
after the break up of the Soviet Union, Kashin said, there was no known
sharing agreement between Beijing and Moscow outside of a 2010 nuclear
reactor agreement.
He
said China may have made progress via adaptations of Russian designs
and through other sources, including espionage, but it is unlikely they
have the newest-generation Russian systems.
"China
is not an adversary of Russia in the naval field," Kashin said. "It is
not creating difficulties for us, it is creating problems for the U.S."
Reporting By Greg Torode; additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Gerry Doyle