China plans to build a large destroyers
Oct 09, 2009
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Beijing plans to build a new generation of large destroyers as part of its effort to develop a modern blue- water navy, a report from an official ship-building institute shows.
The new generation of destroyers is important to China's long-term goal of building and operating aircraft carriers.
The destroyers will displace more than 10,000 tonnes, according to the report by the China Shipbuilding Information Centre - an institute under the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, the largest state-owned shipbuilder in China. In addition to commercial ships, China's state-owned shipbuilders also build warships.
"As China pursues the goal of building a high-seas naval force with far-reaching capabilities, it needs large-tonnage destroyers," Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Kanwa Defence Review based in Canada, said. "Only heavy destroyers with more than 10,000 tonnes of displacement are capable of carrying new, supersonic anti-warship missiles with a striking range of 500 kilometres."
The report said the new destroyers would be another "trump card" for the PLA Navy. They would exceed the largest mainland-made destroyers in service by almost 4,000 tonnes, indicating an overall improvement in combat potential. The planned ship is even larger than the four 8,000-tonne Sovremenny class destroyers that Russia has sold to China.
While the Sovremenny destroyer was a typical cold war-era Soviet design, with a large profile that made it easily detectable by radar, the new destroyer would feature "fully developed stealth technology", the report said. Most of its weapons systems and sensors would not be exposed externally, making the ships harder to detect on radar.
The warship would also carry a large number of weapons systems and sensors, as well as sophisticated electronic warfare and defence equipment, the report said.
The most important of these was a new, supersonic anti-warship missile with a striking range of 500 kilometres. The report said the PLA hoped the new destroyers could close the gap in combat capability between the Chinese and Western navies.
On December 23 last year, defence ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said Beijing was "seriously considering" building a carrier to protect its national interests, ending a decade of speculation by overseas observers.
