Chinese Navy (PLAN) News & Discussions

[hk299792458]

East sea fleet's exercise

North sea fleet's Su-30 in a training

Henri K.

 

[cirr]

#4 launched，#5 under construction

 

[gambit]

Search for MH370 reveals a military vulnerability for China| Reuters

(Reuters) - When Chinese naval supply vessel Qiandaohu entered Australia's Albany Port this month to replenish Chinese warships helping search for a missing Malaysian airliner, it highlighted a strategic headache for Beijing - its lack of offshore bases and friendly ports to call on.

China's deployment for the search - 18 warships, smaller coastguard vessels, a civilian cargo ship and an Antarctic icebreaker - has stretched the supply lines and logistics of its rapidly expanding navy, Chinese analysts and regional military attaches say.

China's naval planners know they will have to fill this strategic gap to meet Beijing's desire for a fully operational blue-water navy by 2050 - especially if access around Southeast Asia or beyond is needed in times of tension.

China is determined to eventually challenge Washington's traditional naval dominance across the Asia Pacific and is keen to be able to protect its own strategic interests across the Indian Ocean and Middle East.

"As China's military presence and projection increases, it will want to have these kind of (port) arrangements in place, just as the U.S. does," said Ian Storey, a regional security expert at Singapore's Institute of South East Asian Studies.

"I am a bit surprised that there is no sign that they even started discussions about long-term access. If visits happen now they happen on an ad-hoc commercial basis. It is a glaring hole."

The United States, by contrast, has built up an extensive network of full bases - Japan, Guam and Diego Garcia - buttressed by formal security alliances and access and repair agreements with friendly countries, including strategic ports in Singapore and Malaysia.

While China is building up its fortified holdings on islands and reefs in the disputed South China Sea, its most significant southernmost base remains on Hainan Island, still some 3,000 nautical miles away from where Chinese warships have been searching for missing Malaysia airlines flight MH370.

Military attaches say foreign port access is relatively easy to arrange during peace-time humanitarian efforts - such as the search for MH370 or during anti-piracy patrols off the Horn of Africa - but moments of tension or conflict are another matter.

"If there was real tension and the risk of conflict between China and a U.S. ally in East Asia, then it is hard to imagine Chinese warships being allowed to enter Australian ports for re-supply," said one Beijing-based analyst who watches China's naval build-up.

"The Chinese know this lack of guaranteed port access is something they are going to have to broach at some point down the track," he said. "As the navy grows, this is going to be a potential strategic dilemma."

Zha Daojiong, an international relations professor at Beijing's Peking University, said the Indian Ocean search was an "exceptional" circumstance and that Chinese strategists knew they could not automatically rely on getting into the ports of U.S. allies if strategic tensions soared.

China's navy had significantly expanded friendship visits to ports from Asia and the Pacific to the Middle East and Mediterranean in recent years, but discussions over longer-term strategic access were still some way off, he said.

"At some point, we will have to create a kind of road-map to create these kind of agreements, that is for sure, but that will be for the future," Zha said.

"We are pragmatic and we know there are sensitivities surrounding these kinds of discussions, or even historic suspicions in some places, so the time is probably not right just yet," he said.

"I expect to see more friendship visits, and on-going access on a request basis. Then there is the issue of making sure the facilities can meet our needs."

Operationally, long-range deployments such as the anti-piracy patrols and the search for wreckage of MH370 have proved important logistical learning curves, he added.

Potential blue-water deployments of future air-craft carrier strike groups further complicates China's logistical outlook.

China's first carrier, the Liaoning, a Soviet-era ship bought from Ukraine in 1998 and re-built in a Chinese shipyard, is being used for training and is not yet fully operational.

Regional military attaches and analysts said it could be decades before China was able to compete with U.S. carriers, if at all.

Tai Ming Cheung, director of the U.C. Institute of Global Conflict and Co-operation at the University of California, described the MH370 search as a "major learning moment" for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and could lead to a push from its top brass to develop global power-projection capabilities.

The PLA covers all arms of the military, including the navy.

Chinese officials and analysts have bristled at suggestions by Western and Indian counterparts that Beijing is attempting to create a so-called "string of pearls" by funding port developments across the Indian Ocean, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh andMyanmar.

Chinese analysts say the ports will never develop into Chinese bases and even long-term access deals would be highly questionable, given the political uncertainties and the immense strategic trust this would require.

Storey, of Singapore's Institute of South East Asian Studies, said the "string of pearls" theory was increasingly seen as discredited among strategic analysts.

So far this decade, Chinese naval ships have visited Gulf ports and other strategic points across the Middle East, including Oman, Israel, Qatar and Kuwait, after completing piracy patrols.

But despite its rapid naval build-up, many experts believe China is a decade or more away from being able to secure key offshore shipping lanes and was still reliant on the United States to secure oil choke-points such as the Straits of Hormuz that leads to the Gulf.

Closer to home, the disputed South China Sea offers few solutions. China's eight fortified holdings on reefs and islets across the contested Spratly archipelago are not considered big enough for a significant offshore base, according to Richard Bitzinger, a regional military analyst at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Nor is the base at Woody Island in the Paracels further north, where China is expanding a runway and harbor.

"Beyond the PLA's significant naval bases on Hainan Island, I just can't see where the Chinese will be able to get the port access they will need in Southeast Asia over the longer term," Bitzinger said. "The intensifying disputes with the likes of the Philippines and Vietnam have hardly helped."

The Philippines and Vietnam, along with Malaysia and Brunei, dispute China's claim to much of the South China Sea, one of the world's most important trade routes. Taiwan's claim mirrors that of Beijing.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan all maintain military bases across the Spratlys, which sit above a seabed rich in oil and gas potential.

"The U.S. Navy has been at this for 100 years or so," and constantly works at maintaining and nurturing its strategic network, Bitzinger said. "China's being doing it for about 15 ... China's not going to be able to catch up overnight."

PLAN leadership no doubt knew that this mission would tax to the limits the PLAN's ability to operate far from home and for long duration. The PLAN admirals are not stupid. They know they do not have the friendly relations and accessibility to foreign ports the way the US have. But that is a different matter and for now, the MH370 search mission will be seen as nothing more than a 'live fire' training sortie for the PLAN.

 

[qwerrty]

that article makes no sense. if such conflict arise in east asia, why would china need to go replenish all the way down there in australia? article also forgetting china has their friendly pakistan, bangladesh or mayanma if they need to go south to protect their sea route..

 

[gambit]

that article make no sense. if such conflict arise in east asia, why would china need to go replenish all the way down there in australia? article also forgetting china has their friendly pakistan, bangladesh or mayanma if they need to go south to protect their sea route..

Good God...Did you actually read AND think what the article tried to say ?

It was not about porting in Australia, which was used only as an example, but about being able to call on friendly ports for long duration and distance from home.

Think for a moment. You can drive back and forth to the same gas station to refuel your car, or you can map out several refueling stations for the day's errands even if you still can run to that one gas station that is closest to your house. It takes time to run to home ports even if you have the fuel to do so. Therefore, it is better to have several friendly port of calls for you to replenish so you can extend your sortie's range.

Christ Almighty...How freaking hard is this to think it out...!!!

 

[qwerrty]

i read up to this and..

"If there was real tension and the risk of conflict between China and a U.S. ally in East Asia, then it is hard to imagine Chinese warships being allowed to enter Australian ports for re-supply," said one Beijing-based analyst who watches China's naval build-up.

 

[Oldman1]

i read up to this and..

Its nothing new. In WW2 ships from both sides sometimes had to find neutral ports to repair and replenish. Imagine if all Chinese naval bases were destroyed or friendly ports were blockaded, then where would surviving Chinese warships go? Australia perhaps? Maybe it would stay neutral in the conflict, who knows. Chinese will have to decide if its worth the effort to be in Australia's good grace.

 

[gambit]

i read up to this and..

Of course. It is understandable because you clearly have limited critical thinking skills.

The PLAN went westward to help in the search for MH370. If you take a look at the map, hopefully you know what a map is, you will see that there are many countries with many ports along the way. Since this is a humanitarian mission, countries would be friendly towards any vessel involved in the search effort. That friendliness would be temporary.

The gist of the article is that if there is any conflict in the East China Sea sector, or anywhere that requires the PLAN to deploy its fleet far from home ports, the lack of friendly relations to any country, as far south as Australia, would hinder the PLAN's ability to prosecute that conflict, and if the conflict involves the US, which most likely will, the US will have the advantage because the US have friendly relationships with many countries in the area. We are returning to the Philippines. We already have port access in Japan, South Korea, and Australia. If the US have improved relation with Viet Nam, and most likely we will, there will be friendly ports there as well.

So in the end, the laugh is on you.

 

[cirr]

New Type 903 supply ship at GSI ！！

 

[hk299792458]

Simulation platform of futur Type 055 destroyer and Type 001 aircraft carrier

Training of KJ-200 AWACS from North Sea Fleet

Henri K.

 

[cirr]

Type 056 #5 from LNS launched：

 

[hk299792458]

16th escort fleet in Tunisia

Henri K.

 

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Type 022 FAC from North sea fleet

Students from 81 Zhenghe training ship in an anti-pirate contest

Henri K.

 

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North sea fleet's 1st destroyer division in a contest

2 exercises of South sea fleet

Henri K.

 

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The 17th and 18th Type 054A frigates

The 13th Type 056 corvette and the 3rd Type 815G ELINT ship

Henri K.