China has 48 ships, an excess of 10,000 military personnel and dozens of fighter jets.
China aims to project her power across the world’s seven Oceans. In 2015, the People’s Liberation Army Navy had 255 battle ships. As at the end of 2020, China had 360 battle ships. Four years from now, they are planning to have 400 battle ships. In only 20 years, China’s Navy has tripled in size.
“Already commanding the world’s largest naval force, the People’s Republic of China is building modern surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, amphibious assault ships, ballistic nuclear missile submarines, large coast guard cutters, and polar icebreakers at alarming speed.”
USA is struggling to have 355 navy ships with no fixed date to do so. However, USA navy has bigger troops with 330,000 being active personnel compared to 250,000 in China.
Further, US has a fleet of 50 submarine boats (all nuclear powered) which still make it a super power. In that category, China has only 7 nuclear powered submarines in a fleet of 62.
On Friday, China announced that they will increase their annual defense budget by 6.8 percent.
China has been able to achieve all these milestones because currently they are the leading commercial ship builders. They hold 40% of the world’s ship building market.
In one year of peace, 2019, China built more ships that U.S. did in 4 years of war (1941-1945).
The same state-owned companies building commercial ships are building China’s naval fleet.
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China’s ships near the Chinese shore are protected by a large force of ground-based missiles.
China is both investing on more ships as well as investing on anti-ship missiles.
China has a fleet of assault ships, powerful destroyers, aircraft carriers and and cruisers which can comfortably operate far from home.
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