In a new report, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) analyzed the progress, intentions and potential challenges to the U.S. Navy posed by China’s naval modernization efforts. The report said the Chinese Navy is seen as posing a significant challenge to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain wartime control of the deep waters of the Western Pacific, the first such challenge to the U.S. Navy since the end of the Cold War, and a key element in China’s challenge to the United States’ longstanding position as the leading military power in the Western Pacific.
The report, last updated Jan. 27 by the Congressional Research Service, said China’s military modernization efforts, including its naval modernization efforts, have become a focus of U.S. defense planning and budgetary attention in an era of great power competition between the United States and China.
The report says the Chinese navy, which has been modernizing for 25 years, has become a formidable military force in China’s offshore areas and is conducting more and more operations in more distant waters, including the vast expanses of the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and waters around Europe.
The report notes that China’s naval modernization efforts include an extensive program of ship, aircraft and weapons procurement, as well as improvements in maintenance and logistics, doctrine, personnel quality, Education and training, and exercises.
The report analyzes the Chinese Navy’s strengths in anti-ship missiles, submarines, aircraft carriers, surface ships and amphibious ships.
“The Chinese Navy is seen as posing a significant challenge to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain wartime control of the deep waters of the Western Pacific, the first such challenge to the U.S. Navy since the end of the Cold War, and a key element in China’s challenge to the United States’ longstanding position as the leading military power in the Western Pacific,” the report concludes.
Turning to China’s efforts to build aircraft carriers in recent years, the report argues that while carriers may have some value to China in Taiwan-related conflict scenarios, they are not important to China’s operations in those scenarios because Taiwan is within range of Chinese land-based aircraft. As a result, most observers believe China is buying aircraft carriers primarily for their value in other ways and to demonstrate China’s status as a leading regional power and world power.
“In a combat situation against the U.S. Navy and Air Force, China’s carriers would be highly vulnerable to attacks by U.S. warships and aircraft, but in a conflict with China, conducting such attacks could prevent U.S. warships and aircraft from performing other missions,” the report said.
The report noted that some observers have expressed strong concerns about China’s anti-ship missiles, which, combined with extensive maritime surveillance and positioning systems, would allow China to attack aircraft carriers and other U.S. Navy ships or naval vessels of allies or partners operating in the Western Pacific.
“The U.S. Navy has never before faced the threat of a highly accurate ballistic missile capable of hitting a moving ship at sea. For this reason, some observers refer to anti-ship ballistic missiles as ‘game-changing’ weapons,” the report said.
The report, which compares the number of ships in the Chinese Navy to the U.S. Navy, says China is not only the largest navy in East Asia, but in the past few years it has surpassed the U.S. Navy in the number of warships, making it the largest in the world.
The report mentions that some observers in the United States have expressed concern and even warned about the Chinese navy’s shipbuilding capabilities, particularly the construction of larger surface ships and the resulting trend lines regarding the relative size of the Chinese and U.S. navies. But it notes that the number of ships is not, by itself, a good indicator of naval capability.
The report says the Chinese navy currently has certain limitations and weaknesses, but is working to overcome them.
The report also analyzes the purpose of China’s naval modernization efforts.
“China’s military modernization efforts, including its naval modernization efforts, are seen as aimed at developing the capabilities necessary to respond militarily to the situation in Taiwan; achieving greater control or dominance in China’s offshore areas, particularly in the South China Sea; enforcing China’s view that it has the right to regulate foreign military activities; defend China’s commercial maritime lines of communication (SLOC), particularly those connecting China to the Persian Gulf; displace U.S. influence in the Western Pacific; and maintain China’s position as a major regional power and world power,” the report said.
As a result, some observers believe China wants its navy to be able to serve as part of China’s anti-access/area-denial force, a force that could deter U.S. intervention in a conflict over Taiwan or other issues in China’s offshore areas, or failing that, delay the arrival of intervening U.S. forces or reduce their effectiveness.
Other missions of the Chinese Navy include maritime security operations, overseas evacuations, and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief operations, according to the report.
For the U.S. Congress, the report notes, their primary concern is whether the U.S. Navy is responding appropriately to China’s naval modernization efforts.
The report mentions that in recent years, the U.S. Navy has taken a number of actions in response to China’s naval modernization, including deploying a larger percentage of its fleet, as well as its most advanced ships, aircraft and best personnel to the Pacific; maintaining or enhancing its military presence in the region; enhancing training and exercises; engaging and cooperating with allies and other navies in the Indo-Pacific region; expanding the size of its planned navy; and initiating, increasing or accelerating numerous projects to develop increased or accelerated numerous programs to develop new military technologies and acquire new ships, aircraft, and unmanned vehicles and weapons; and began developing new operational concepts to counter China’s maritime anti-access/area denial forces.
The Congressional Research Service, part of the Library of Congress, is known as the “think tank of Congress” and provides policy and legal analysis to committees and members of the House and Senate.
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