China adds warships to rival US navy

China is producing at least six more advanced guided-missile destroyers as part of its plan to build a navy rivalling that of the United States, new evidence suggests.

A Chinese PLA-N Luyang-class guided missile destroyer leaving the Torres Strait and entering the Coral Sea earlier this year. Picture; ADF via AFP.

China is producing at least six more advanced guided-missile destroyers as part of its plan to build a navy rivalling that of the United States, new evidence suggests.

Citing a picture posted on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo, Naval News, a Paris-based defence news site, reported that five hulls of the Type 052D Luyang III-class destroyer were being built at the Dalian shipyard in the country’s northeast.

Another Type 052D destroyer is being built at the Jiangnan-Changxing shipyard northeast of Shanghai, according to Naval News.

All six, armed with guided tactical missiles and advanced radar systems, look set to join an existing fleet of 25 Type 052D destroyers in the world’s largest navy, after eight were built last year.

China’s defence ministry has not confirmed the report, nor has it officially announced such construction plans, but unnamed Chinese analysts told The Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, that it is “not unexpected if China is indeed building more advanced warships, particularly amid the current turbulent global security situation”.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) considers a large modern navy essential for any future invasion of Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own territory, which could potentially bring it into conflict with the United States and Japan.

The PLA, as China’s armed forces are collectively known, already has a total of 777 warships, compared with around 490 in the US Navy and 73 in the Royal Navy. But America has a total of 92 destroyers – which have largely replaced battleships and cruisers as the epitome of modern surface-fighting vessels – compared with China’s 41 and Britain’s six.

Beijing is hoping to quickly expand the numbers of aircraft carriers and destroyers and to narrow the gap with Washington, as it seeks to challenge the US navy’s dominance in the Indo-Pacific region and modernise its national defence forces by 2035.

The 157-metre-long Type 052Ds, considered the equivalent to the American Aegis-class destroyers, are one of China’s most advanced warships. With a 7,500-tonne displacement, the vessel has 64 vertical launch systems for missiles as well as a 130mm gun.

A variant, the Type 052DL, is about four metres longer to accommodate the new Z-20 helicopter on a landing pad. The ones under construction are expected to be the longer variant, Naval News reported, with the transport helicopters that resemble America’s Black Hawk type.

One Chinese expert argued that the country would use the new vessels to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests, and compared the move to the US using warships to maintain its global hegemony.

The US, which has a security pact with Taiwan to deter any mainland military attack, has protested to Beijing after the PLA staged extensive military drills this month in response to a visit by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives to Taipei.

Wendy Sherman, deputy US secretary of state, held discussions on Tuesday with Qin Gang, the Chinese ambassador to Washington, over Taiwan, American officials said, without disclosing further details.

Beijing also reacted angrily on Tuesday after Keiji Furuya, a Japanese member of parliament, visited Taiwan and it accused a group of smaller countries allied to Taiwan of “severely interfering with China’s internal politics”.

The Times