The PLA Navy is getting a bigger budget and is buying modern vessels and weapons systems from abroad. China's ships are sailing farther and spending more days at sea than at any time since the mid-fifteenth century. What's going on?
After decades of making do with a navy numerically large but technologically dated, the PRC is giving increased attention to developing modern and versatile naval forces. Beijing's expanding maritime interests are driven by its claims to island and ocean territories in the South China Sea, contingency planning in relation to Taiwan, the prestige needs of a rising power, and its rapidly expanding international trade and commercial links. Another important consideration is the mainland's growing demand for food, raw materials, and energy to sustain an expanding population that each year adds the equivalent of the total number of people in Australia.
By 2020, for instance, the PRC's oil requirements are projected to reach 350 million tons per year; current onshore production is around 150 million tons, and it is tapering off. Because energy imports come primarily by sea, secure sealanes are a high national priority. At least a partial solution to China's energy problems may lie in the South China Sea, thought by many people to have large oil and natural gas resources. The PLA Navy has already acted to back up Beijing's seabed claims in the area. In 1974, the PRC seized several of the Paracel Islands, then in South Vietnamese hands, and built an airstrip there. Subsequently, the PLA Navy has been active in various parts of the Spratly islands, most recently its occupation three years ago of Mischief Reef, near Palawan island in the Philippines.
Part of the navy's increased share of the PRC's defense budget is being used to boost its capabilities by acquiring new destroyers and frigates equipped with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems. It is also training marine and airborne forces to handle amphibious landings.
Beijing's offshore claims are being bolstered by new equipment and weapons platforms. Some examples: The PRC has modernized its Badger B-6D naval bomber and developed a new fighter bomber, the FB-7, equipped with the C-601 anti-ship missile or the Exocet-like C-801 anti-ship missile. The Badger bomber gives the PLA enough range to cover most of the South China Sea. The PRC's acquisition of the Su-27 Flanker long-range fighter aircraft from Russia, as well as inflight refueling technology, further extends its reach into the western Pacific.
The speed of the PRC's rise as a naval power depends very much on its access to Russian defense technology. Since signing a five-year military cooperation pact with Russia in 1993, the PLA has obtained access to advanced Russian naval weapons systems and technology, including surface-to-air missiles, towed-array sonars, multitarget torpedo control systems, nuclear submarine propulsion systems, and technology to improve the range and accuracy of undersea-launched cruise missiles.
In 1994, China ordered four Kilo-class submarines from Russia with two delivered so far. The Kilo package includes a very capable wire-guided acoustic homing anti-submarine warfare (ASW) torpedo and an anti-ship wake-homing torpedo.
The PRC's recent purchase of two modern Russian Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyers--delivery is expected within two years--is a significant milestone in China's rise as a maritime power. The Sovremenny is a surface strike combat ant comparable to the US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and Japan's Kongo-class guided missile destroyer. It was described by the US Department of Defense in its 1987 edition of Soviet Military Power as one of the most technologically advanced naval warships ever produced by the Soviet Union. There are seventeen Sovremennys in service with the Russian navy today, the most recent having been commissioned in 1992. Work on subsequent hulls at the St. Petersburg shipyards ceased because of a lack of funds.
PRC shipyards, meanwhile, have been unable to produce modern surface combatants since the cutoff in Western naval technology that followed the Tiananmen incident in 1989. For instance, the United States stopped the supply of the General Electric gas turbine engine intended for the PRC's own Luhu-class destroyer. China was thus limited to the construction of just two of the ships, because it was unable to find alternative engines from the Ukraine or Russia that would fit without a redesign of the hull. The PRC has also encountered technical problems with the integration of so many different Western -sourced weapons systems on the Luhu and other ships, including its Jiangwei-class frigate.
Given these circumstances, the best solution has been to buy from the cash-strapped Russians. Now, for US$800 million, the PLA Navy will be getting two of Russia's frontline warships and a big leap forward in terms of firepower, naval electronics, and shipborne air defenses. The Sovremenny is a specialist surface warfare ship armed with eight supersonic active -homing, medium-range SS-N-22 Sunburn anti-ship missiles (Mach 2.35, range 90-120 km). These missiles, armed with 300 kg of high explosive or a small nuclear warhead, have a downlink terminal seeker that could be programmed to maneuver and select a carrier in a naval battle group. Indeed, they were specifically designed to evade and defeat the US Navy Aegis /Standard RIM-67-equipped cruisers and destroyers that screen US aircraft carriers.
According to US Department of Defense reports, the Sovremenny's Sunburn anti-ship missile is very difficult to intercept. Previously, the best anti-ship missile in the Chinese inventory was the subsonic C-801. The Sunburn, therefore, will fill a critical gap in the surface capabilities of the PLA Navy and will increase China's ability to threaten US aircraft carriers if they are posted to the East China Sea in support of Taiwan, as occurred in March 1996, when the USS Nimitz and USS Independence were deployed east of Taiwan.
The Sovremenny's other particular attraction is its Aegis-type integrated air defense system. China's most modern, indigenously designed surface combatants, the Luhu-class destroyer and the Jiangwei-class frigate, are vulnerable to air attack. The Sovremenny, on the other hand, can deal simultaneously with up to six air threats. It has a digital fire control system, forty-four short to medium-range SA-N-7 Gadfly surface-to-air missiles, and two fast-reload launchers.
The Sovremenny also carries two twin 130 mm guns, as well as torpedoes, ASW mortars, and up to forty mines. It is equipped with sophisticated hull-mounted search and attack radars, electronic countermeasures, and a helicopter. With a range of 14,000 km at 14 knots and a maximum speed of 32 knots, it is a blue-water warship of impressive dimensions. In terms of tonnage, naval technology, and sheer firepower it is unequaled anywhere in East Asia. It is twice the size of the average Australian or Taiwanese warship. The Japanese have three Aegis-type Kongo-class destroyers of similar size, but they lack the heavy punch of the Sovremenny's anti-ship missiles.
The Sovremennys will become the flagships of a revamped Chinese fleet. Each of the new ships is expected to constitute the centerpiece of a Chinese naval task force that is likely to comprise a Sovremenny, one Luhu destroyer, two modernized Luda-class destroyers, two Jiangwei frigates, and two Kilo submarines. The PLA needs a modern ASW ship to complement the new force and might therefore buy the Russian Udaloy-class guided-missile destroyer, a specialist fighting ship with this capability.
Some military officers say that an aircraft carrier would also fit in well with a PRC naval battle group. In this regard, one should note that the newly appointed PLA Navy Chief, Admiral Shi Yunsheng, is a former naval pilot with thirty-five years of flying experience. He joined the PLA in the 1950s and has been an enthusiastic supporter of naval air power ever since. He has emphasized the importance of developing long-range naval and shipborne air assault capabilities. In the mid-1980s, he pioneered PLA doctrine on aircraft carrier operations.
By 2010, China could possibly build an aircraft carrier (carrying a Chinese built Su-27s or F-10s), or it might try to buy one from Spain or Russia. But some PRC defense specialists argue that China does not need and cannot afford the luxury of a large, expensive, and vulnerable ship that would tie up scarce resources. Shi's predecessor, Admiral Zhang Lianzhong, maintained that the chief priority for the PLA, at least for the remainder of this century, was to construct a modern fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
By adding aircraft carriers, the PRC would be competing in a field that is clearly dominated by the United States. Nevertheless, an aircraft carrier has a certain prestige status and, despite the cost and the impracticality, acquiring such a ship early next century is an option the navy might find hard to resist.
The pace of the PLA's naval modernization program has undoubtedly quickened in recent years, with consequences for regional perceptions of the PRC as a great maritime power. But buying Kilo-class submarines and surface ships with the firepower of the Sovremenny guided-missile destroyer runs the risk of sending the wrong message, especially when it seems that the PRC has also deployed its Su-27 long-range fighter aircraft to locations where they can support fleets in the western Pacific.
These developments mean that Beijing will need to do a lot more to reassure the region about its intentions, including clearer explanations about how it plans to deal with disputed claims to islands and other territories in the South China Sea. The signs so far suggest that Beijing will try to be more transparent militarily. It has just published a comprehensive white paper on defense matters. Moreover, the PRC's participation in such confidence-building measures as the Conference on Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) has been an encouraging step toward greater openness.
The PLA Navy is going to become more powerful, but this does not necessarily mean that it should be greatly feared. It will take a long time for the PRC to match even the present-day naval capabilities of the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and even some of the ASEAN countries. And although the Sovremenny will represent a significant technological advance, the rate of progress in Western defense technology is such that it will take at least one and probably two decades before China's navy begins to close the gap--if it ever does.
When the PLA Navy takes delivery of its two Sovremennys in two years or so, its overall fleet will still comprise ships that are fewer in number and much older in terms of technology than the Japanese navy. The Japanese fleet consists of over sixty-three modern principal surface combatants. By the time China takes delivery of its Sovremennys, the Japanese fleet will include six or more Kongo-class guided missile destroyers. Furthermore, as the former US Defense Secretary William Perry remarked in a warning to Beijing during the Taiwan Strait crisis of March 1996, "The United States has the best damned navy in the world." This judgment, confined even to the assets in the US Seventh Fleet, is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
Nonetheless, over the last few years, the new PLA Navy has put on a display of seapower the like of which has not been seen in the Asia-Pacific region for centuries. Apart from the United States Navy, no other navy ships have sailed as far south and across the Pacific Ocean in the last two years.
Preceded in 1985 by a two ship, coast-hugging visit to Sri Lanka and Pakistan, a small Chinese naval task force sailed to North and South America in March 1997, stopping in Honolulu and San Diego before going on to ports in Mexico, Chile, and Peru. The vessels included one of China's few relatively modern surface combatants, a Luhu-class guided-missile destroyer. It was accompanied by a modernized Luda III destroyer and the largest ship in the Chinese navy, the Nanchang, a supply ship. The last time Chinese warships made a journey of comparable distance was in 1433, when the Ming dynasty Admiral Zheng He sent a fleet of four-decked war junks and 27,500 troops (more than the present strength of the Australian Army) through Southeast Asia to the Middle East and Africa.
At roughly the same time as last year's historic visit to the Americas, two ships of China's East Sea Fleet sailed to Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. These ships comprised the PLA's only other modern guided-missile destroyer (a Luhu launched in 1996) and one of the recently completed Jiangwei-class frigates. This was the first-ever visit to these three ASEAN countries by PRC warships. In the case of the Philippines, the only previous encounters with the PRC's emerging naval power was in the South China Sea in March 1994, when Chinese ships supported the occupation of the Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef.
While the overt message for the ASEAN states was that Beijing wants to build up maritime cooperation, the PLA Navy was in fact putting on the first display in centuries of its navy's ability to project power in Southeast Asia.
In May 1998, the navy headed south to Australia and New Zealand. A Luhu destroyer, the supply ship Nanchang, and a training ship visited Auckland and Sydney, the most southerly point reached by the Chinese navy since Zheng He's historic voyage.
These visits point to the PRC's emerging blue-water intentions and indicate, as many PRC strategists have already proposed, that the PRC should stop thinking in terms of coastal defense and build a maritime China with an ocean orientation and a strong navy to match the country's status as an economic power with global interests.
The Luhu destroyers that went to the Americas and Southeast Asia are China's largest (4,200 tons) and most modern surface combatants. They had never been examined at first hand by Western intelligence analysts before, although one Luhu was photographed many times during the PLA's threatening Taiwan Strait exercises in March 1996.
The Luhu is a relatively modern general purpose warship suitable for showing the flag in Southeast Asia, but it also illustrates how much the PLA relies on foreign technology. The Luhu is composed of bits and pieces bought, borrowed, or copied from around the world. The hull was designed in China, but the engines are American-made gas turbines. The helicopters are French-derived Dauphins, and it is armed with a copy of the French compact 100 mm gun. The Crotale anti-aircraft missile system is French, the anti-aircraft guns are derived from the Italian Beretta Fast 40, and the Whitehead ASW torpedoes are also Italian. Its ASW mortars stem from a Russian design of the 1950s.
Although naval intelligence specialists acknowledge that the Luhu looks good, they also note its vulnerability to air attack. With its short range, low-altitude air defense systems, the Luhu cannot defend itself against aircraft launching missiles beyond the range of the Crotale (13 km). But Taiwan's Hsiung Feng II (similar to the Harpoon ASM), for example, has a range of 40 km. It is carried by the AT3A, (similar to the British Aerospace Hawk) and the IDF, Taiwan's indigenous fighter.
It is unknown how successful the PLA has been in integrating the Luhu's weapons systems with its sonars, radars, and sensors--nor is it clear how well this complex package works in practice. But naval intelligence specialists from the region have now had a good chance to give the ship and its armaments a close look. The Luhu and its accompanying vessels were open for inspection in Honolulu, San Diego, Auckland, and Sydney, and were given a thorough going-over by analysts.
In this case, the Chinese seem to feel that they have nothing worth hiding and, in any event, they are not going to engage in a war at sea with the United States or Australia. The real war is being fought in the arena of public diplomacy. In fact, the ships that went to America and Australia had their own band and sports teams chosen to promote goodwill and understanding.
The PLA Navy visit to Sydney symbolizes the closer defense relations that are developing between the PRC and Australia. Last February, PLA General Chi Haotian made the first-ever visit to Australia by a Chinese defense minister and tried to convince his hosts in Canberra that Beijing wants stability, transparency, and predictability in regional politics just as much as Canberra does.
As well as strengthening its blue-water capabilities, these flag-showing exercises also demonstrate the PLA's interest in working cooperatively with other navies in the region, including areas such as sea rescue. Moreover, the PRC wants to familiarize itself with the best in modern Western naval technology; to that end, it is willing to be more transparent than ever before.
This is a significant shift in thinking. It illustrates the cultural change that is sweeping through the PLA Navy under the command of Admiral Shi Yunsheng. The new openness suggests a growing belief in the benefits to be obtained from neighborly exchanges between the navies of countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Given this recent burst of activity, the PLA Navy might even want to make a similar goodwill visit to Kaohsiung or Keelung in Taiwan in the near future.
Gary Klintworth is a visiting fellow at the
Department of International Relations at
the Research School of Pacific and Asian
Studies, Australian National University.
He is the author of New Taiwan, New
China: Taiwan's Changing Role in the
Asia-Pacific Region (NY: St. Martin's
Press, 1996). He was formerly the chief
strategic adviser on China and East Asia
in the Defence Intelligence Organisation,
Department of Defence, Australia.
Copyright 1998 by Gary Klintworth.