As China invests in its warships, tensions between Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea are focusing more attention onto how the two nations' naval forces match up.
On Saturday, Beijing's People's Liberation Army Southern Theater Command said it had deployed its naval and air forces to "track, monitor and warn away" a U.S. destroyer in the disputed South China Sea, according to Reuters.
The U.S. Navy said the USS Hopper had "asserted navigational rights in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands, consistent with international law," before carrying on with operations. The Paracels are a collection of coral islands that are claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Beijing, Taipei and Hanoi all need "permission or advance notification before a military vessel or warship engages in 'innocent passage' through their territorial sea, in violation of international law," the U.S. Navy said.
Tensions have been rising between the U.S. and China in the South China Sea, not least because of Beijing's overtures towards Taiwan and spats between China and the U.S.'s ally, the Philippines.
China has poured resources into its burgeoning Navy, turning it into numerically the largest naval force in the world. The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) now has around 370 ships and submarines, according to a Pentagon assessment released in October.
"China's recent efforts to update and expand its military capabilities have meant a concerted push on shipbuilding," according to Emma Salisbury, an associate fellow at the U.K.-based Council on Geostrategy. "Many of its surface combatants are relatively modern—with more on the way, including destroyers, cruisers and frigates," she told Newsweek.
"The fact that China is building so many new surface and subsurface vessels should in itself be a spur for the United States and its allies to redouble their own shipbuilding efforts, as quantity sometimes has a quality all its own," she added.
Analysts previously told Newsweek that the U.S. Navy's surface combatants could be more vulnerable to maintenance gaps than other key capabilities, such as submarines and naval aviation.
China's new surface ships are better equipped than older versions, and "look far more like equivalent modern multi-mission combatants," Salisbury said, adding they are kitted out with advanced anti-ship weapons and the likes of anti-submarine warfare systems.
Yet it is hard to compare Chinese vessels with their U.S. counterparts, she argued.
"It is difficult to assess how these ships match up against their American equivalents," given Beijing has not carried out combat operations for several decades and training drill data is classified, Salisbury said.
"There has also been a focus on integration with the other branches of the Chinese military to enable joint-operations, as well as on projecting power beyond the South China Sea," she added.
However, despite China's swelling naval fleet, the U.S. navy remains formidable. The network of bases and partnerships the U.S. has around the world, and its familiarity with operating globally, is still leagues ahead of what China can do," according to Bryden Spurling, senior research leader for defense and security, at the European branch of the RAND think tank.
"And it's arguable whether China will be able to match it in the future, even if they would like to do so," he told Newsweek in late October.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more
