Not at all, Gambit said: "experience in modern warfare". When was the last time that the chinese have been engaged in modern warfare?
Ehrrrr actually not yet. Chinese navy still has to prove in real battles. But to be fair, only a handful countries had seen real major naval engagements in the last century: Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Britain and of course the United States.
But how do you assess Chinese weaponry against ships, for example ballistic antiship missile?
Most people do not understand the significance of immediate post WW II when it comes to military postures.
When WW II ended, the US was the only blue water navy. All the major naval powers were either destroyed outright or severely diminished in size and capability. Yes, naval powers like France and Britain could travel the seas, but not without US support.
http://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html
By the end of WW II, as the chart shows, the US have over 6000 ships, ranging from submarines to battleships to aircraft carriers. The US was the undisputed supreme naval power never seen in history. That is no hyperbole, and I am Air Force.
WW II not only destroyed the navies of many countries, the war killed many of their most capable and experience leaders. Further, their countries' industrial base were either destroyed or severely degraded. In the case of Japan and Germany, both were nearly back in the Stone Age.
So if we want to talk about 'modern warfare', immediately post WW II is the start of that era. WW II was the first time fleets fought each other without seeing each other, thanks to air power. That mean -- at least on paper -- any navy without an aircraft carrier is essentially defeated when faced an opponent navy who has one. Would anyone dare to test out that theory ? So far, no one tried.
The Royal Navy have this rule...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Royal_Navy
The standard called for the Royal Navy to be as strong as the world's next two largest navies combined (at that point, France and Russia) by maintaining a number of battleships at least equal to their combined strength.
Not too many countries can afford to exercise that rule. Technology expanded that rule. Back then, the word 'strong' means numerical values of ships, along with how many cannons, and calibers of those cannons, and how fast are those ships.
That is not so today. Modern warfare make it possible for smaller and fewer ships to defeat a numerically larger opponent. So even if China can build more ships than US, the combined value from technology and combat experience factors still have the US on top by a large margin. The PLAN essentially was birthed after WW II. It was a baby when the USN was a battle scarred and hardened adult, and continued to occasionally take on someone to this day.
The PLAN is still struggling to modernize itself while the USN continues rewriting the book on naval warfare. If anyone can do away with the aircraft carrier, it will be US. If anyone can bring back the battleship as a modern combat platform, it will be US. If anyone can make a helo-carrier like in the Avengers movies, it will be US.
If there is a shooting fight between the USN and the PLAN, it will be a lopsided battle with the PLAN ships ended up as artificial reefs.
