In a new explainer, Defense Priorities Non-Resident Fellow Mike Sweeney explores important questions about the Chinese Navy’s ability to contest the United States on a global scale.
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Because China has the world’s largest navy in terms of raw ship numbers, there is understandable concern about the threat China poses to the United States on a global scale. To contest the U.S. globally, China would need more overseas bases than the two it currently has in Djibouti and Cambodia. Similarly, its aircraft carriers cannot sustain high-tempo aviation operations beyond the First Island Chain for an extended period.
Developing super-quiet attack submarines would markedly improve China’s ability to conduct blue-water operations. However, to date, China has not fielded submarines that match the technological capabilities of U.S. boats. A careful examination of China’s naval strength shows that while it is well-positioned to wage a war close to its shores, the PLAN is not a global peer of the U.S. Navy.
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Comparison of Chinese and U.S. security networks in the western Pacific
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Key points
- Despite having the world’s largest navy, important questions can be asked about China’s ability to challenge the U.S. Navy on a global scale. A number of factors—geography, logistical infrastructure, force structure, and command culture—all argue that China cannot do so at this time.
- In particular, China would need to significantly expand the number and caliber of its overseas bases in order to support large-scale, blue-water operations by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). China currently has just two overseas bases—at Djibouti and Cambodia—and both are of limited capacity.
- Absent such a basing network, the PLAN is reliant on at-sea replenishment, a capability that is inherently vulnerable in wartime. China possesses some quality at-sea replenishment vessels but not nearly in sufficient quantities to support widespread global operations.
- While Chinese naval aviation has shown important improvements over the last year, the PLAN does not appear to have the logistical capacity to sustain high-tempo carrier operations outside the First Island Chain for an extended period of time.
- Super-quiet Chinese nuclear submarines would be game-changers in terms of Chinese blue-water operations. But thus far China has not shown mastery of the requisite technologies to build boats with this capability. It would also take China several years to grow a fleet of super-quiet submarines once the necessary technological challenges have been solved.
- Structural issues with the Chinese economy raise new concerns about Beijing’s ability to fund a blue-water navy over the long term. Such calculations must include the expense of ship construction, but also the massive operations and maintenance budget needed to deploy a potential navy of over 400 ships.
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