China's staggering warship-building capacity

China is now the world’s leading shipbuilder by such a large margin that it dwarfs America’s capability to produce “battle force” warships and submarines. The growing superpower has a shipbuilding capacity which is more than 230 times bigger than the total space available at US construction yards, according to the latest assessment by American naval intelligence. A US Navy briefing slide published in The Warzone¸ a US defence website, and confirmed as genuine by the Pentagon, reveals that China has enough capacity to build 23,250,000 million tons of vessels compared with less than 100,000 tons in the US. Fifty dry docks in China can physically accommodate an aircraft carrier, and 20 shipyards can support naval construction programmes, according to the US Navy slide. Thirteen yards are solely involved in warship-building. One of them, located in Dalian Changxing new development zone n Liaoning province, northeast China, has more capacity than all of the seven US shipyards combined, Carlos Del Toro, the Pentagon’s navy secretary, said in February. While China still has only three aircraft carriers, against America’s 11, the pace of Beijing’s warship-building programme is so rapid that by 2035, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is expected to have 475 combat ships – 120 more than it has today. This is projected to include five carrier battle groups. Combat or battle force warships include carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, submarines, amphibious assault vessels and large support auxiliary ships. The gap, in terms of ship numbers, between the Chinese and US navies is causing such alarm that there is pressure in Congress and from within the navy to accelerate the construction programme. The current number of battle force ships in the US Navy is 296. The US Navy has requested $32.8 billion in its 2024 budget proposal for the procurement of nine warships, including one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, two Virginia-class attack submarines, two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers and two Constellation-class frigates. However, 11 ships are due to be retired. Under the navy’s five-year building programme there are plans to produce 11 new ships each year. But even at that rate, taking into account the vessels being retired, the US Navy would still only have 385 combat ships by the 2060s. The 11 carriers remain the US Navy’s most potent projection of power. But with global responsibilities, the carriers have to be deployed in many of the world’s oceans and more than half of them at any one time are in home ports, in American waters, under maintenance or engaged in long-term refurbishment. Currently, USS Ronald Reagan, the only overseas-based carrier, in Yokosuka, Japan, is in the Indian Ocean, USS Gerald R Ford, the new-generation carrier, is in the Ionian Sea in the Mediterranean, and USS Dwight D Eisenhower is operating off the southeastern US coast. The carrier USS Nimitz was in the South China Sea earlier this year but is now back in its home port. Underlining the constant pressure China’s navy is applying in the region, PLAN warships took part in a second day of large-scale exercises with the Chinese air force to the south and southwest of Taiwan.