Those 4 Words: Bigger than U.S. Navy
Beijing’s military modernization program, most specifically the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), has become the top issue for US defense planners to address. The latest (24 April) iteration of a series of reports on the subject from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) drills down on these details.
The latest version drills down on how, since the 1990s, Beijing’s naval force has become far more modern and is capable of carrying a much greater number of missions than in the previous century.
China Aircraft Carrier Models. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The PLAN is understandably an extremely formidable military force in the PRC’s littoral zone, as the defense of the mainland remains one of its primary missions. But, as the report denotes, with the addition of more capital ships like aircraft carriers, it is gradually exhibiting the capability to conduct operations like that of a “blue water” navy. PLAN ships are now regularly seen in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the waters around Europe.
While the PLAN already has the largest navy of any country in East Asia, by 2020, it officially had a fleet with greater numbers of “battle force” ships than there are of that class of vessel in the US Navy.
Official Pentagon documents describe the PLAN as “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. This figure does not include approximately 60 HOUBEI-class patrol combatants that carry anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM). The … overall battle force [of China’s navy] is expected to grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030.”
Officially, as of last September, the US Navy, by comparison, consisted of 296 battle force ships, which, despite shipbuilding efforts in the US, will see that number drop to 294 by the end of 2030.
“We are not going to be building enough ships in the next years to replace those vessels being retired from service and keep even with the current fleet size,” explained a retired senior Naval intelligence officer. “We could be looking at the US Navy being in a state of permanent numerical inferiority to the Chinese.”
U.S. Navy: Trending in the Wrong Direction
Other US military officials and Chinese naval analysts are equally alarmed about the speed and overall volume of output at which China’s naval shipyards operate. The Chinese shipbuilding industry’s capacity is considerably larger than that of the US, producing trend lines of what will be the future fleet dispositions of the PRC and the US running in opposite directions.
Speaking as to the outcome of a US-PRC battle if Beijing were to attempt to invade the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan, “the United States will prevail in the conflict as it stands now, with the force that we have right now,” Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo told the McCain Institute’s annual Sedona Forum in Arizona on Friday, 2 May.
Paparo was speaking just one year after taking over at Indo-Pacific command and stressed that the US military holds key advantages over PLAN in undersea warfare capabilities and in the domain of space and weapons that can neutralize space assets. However, his overriding concern is that the PRC is building weapons systems—particularly naval vessels—at a rate that significantly outpaces US shipyards.
A Chinese Aircraft Carrier on the high-seas. Image Credit: Chinese Internet.
“Our trajectory on … really every force element that is salient is a bad trajectory,” Paparo stated.
Paparo said that Beijing produces two submarines a year for every 1.4 made in the US. The PRC also turns out six combat naval ships annually, compared with the 1.8 manufactured in the US.
Full Spectrum Modernization
The PLAN’s modernization push involves more than aggressively building ships, aircraft, weapons, and C4ISR (command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) platforms. In addition, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) naval arm is also focused on improving every aspect of building a new force structure.
This means increasing and improving the forces’ logistics capabilities, developing and refining doctrine, improving personnel quality through improved education and training, and conducting more realistic and interactive training exercises. Due to the overall nature of a military service operating in a dictatorship like the PRC, the PLAN suffers from limitations and shortcomings that are largely consequences of the political constraints imposed on it.
In the end, the service is officially working on modernizing its capabilities to react to any crisis or mission anywhere on the globe. But in reality, the PLAN has a singular obsession at the center of these modernization initiatives—all geared towards the military situation on the ROC. All other requirements are secondary.
China’s first aircraft carrier. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The challenge at this point is whether the US and its allies can respond in kind to a level that neutralizes the PLAN’s move to overpower the US Navy in the Straits of Formosa. The biggest concern is whether the US will take enough action in time to avoid the situation that
Paparo’s predecessor, retired admiral John Aquilino, warned of last year.
He assessed that the PRC had a “boiling frog” strategy v. the US. This means that the PLAN and other service branches will gradually increase the military temperature of its buildup so that the threat from Beijing would be underestimated until it is too late to have adequate time to react.
Paparo said that since he took command a year ago, the PLA had significantly escalated its actions and was rehearsing the “entire range of military operations” for Taiwan.
“You hear the metaphor ‘boiling the frog’ … It’s a rapid boil,” he said.
About the Author
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
Kevin Burke
May 9, 2025 at 11:17 am
Most of the Chinese vessels are low tonnage and not threatening warships. Wow, it is prudent to be alarmed. At the addition to the Chinese fleet, it should be understood that a lot of what’s being built is not high quality, tested and battle ready. They’ve had problems with submarines, naval aircraft, and Carrier operations. It was a strategic blender for the US to let it shipyards language, but hopefully that can be corrected now.