People's Liberation Army Navy

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Image:Naval Ensign of the People's Republic of China.svg The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) (Simp.中国人民解放军海军, Trad. 中國人民解放軍海軍, Pinyin: Zhōngguó Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn Hǎijūn) is the naval arm of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the military of the People's Republic of China. Until the early 1990s, the navy performed a subordinate role to the PLA land forces. Since then it has undergone rapid modernisation. The PLAN also includes 35,000 Coastal Defence Force and 56,000 Naval infantry/Marines, plus a 56,000 PLAN Aviation operating several hundred landbased aircraft and shipbased helicopters.

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History

Template:Chinese military The PLAN has its origins from units of the Republic of China Navy who defected to the PLA towards the end of the Chinese Civil War. In 1949, Mao Zedong asserted that "to oppose imperialist aggression, we must build a powerful navy." The Naval Academy was set up at Dalian in March 1950, mostly with Soviet instructors. The Navy was established in September 1950 by consolidating regional naval forces under General Staff Department command in Jiangyan, now in Taizhou, Jiangsu province. It then consisted of a motley collection of ships and boats acquired from the Guomindang forces. The Naval Air Force was added two years later. By 1954 an estimated 2,500 Soviet naval advisers were in China--possibly one adviser to every thirty Chinese naval personnel--and the Soviet Union began providing modern ships. With Soviet assistance, the navy reorganized in 1954 and 1955 into the North Sea Fleet, East Sea Fleet, and South Sea Fleet, and a corps of admirals and other naval officers was established from the ranks of the ground forces. In shipbuilding the Soviets first assisted the Chinese, then the Chinese copied Soviet designs without assistance, and finally the Chinese produced vessels of their own design. Eventually Soviet assistance progressed to the point that a joint Sino-Soviet Pacific Ocean fleet was under discussion.

Through the upheavals of the late 1950s and 1960s the Navy remained relatively undisturbed. Under the leadership of Minister of National Defense Lin Biao, large investments were made in naval construction during the frugal years immediately after the Great Leap Forward. During the Cultural Revolution, a number of top naval commissars and commanders were purged, and naval forces were used to suppress a revolt in Wuhan in July 1967, but the service largely avoided the turmoil affecting the country. Although it paid lip service to Mao and assigned political commissars aboard ships, the Navy continued to train, build, and maintain the fleets.

Image:PLAN sailors.jpg

In the 1970s, when approximately 20 percent of the defense budget was allocated to naval forces, the Navy grew dramatically. The conventional submarine force increased from 35 to 100 boats, the number of missile-carrying ships grew from 20 to 200, and the production of larger surface ships, including support ships for oceangoing operations, increased. The Navy also began development of nuclear-powered attack submarines and nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.

In the 1980s, under the leadership of Chief Naval Commander Liu Huaqing, the Navy developed into a regional naval power with some blue-water capabilities. Naval construction continued at a level somewhat below the 1970s rate. Modernization efforts encompassed higher educational and technical standards for personnel; reformulation of the traditional coastal defense doctrine and force structure in favor of more blue-water operations; and training in naval combined-arms operations involving submarine, surface, naval aviation, and coastal defense forces. Examples of the expansion of China's blue-water naval capabilities were the 1980 recovery of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the Western Pacific by a twenty-ship fleet, extended naval operations in the South China Sea in 1984 and 1985, and the visit of two naval ships to three South Asian nations in 1985. In 1982 the Navy conducted a successful test of an underwater-launched ballistic missile. The Navy also had some success in developing a variety of surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles, improving basic capabilities.

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Current

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Strategy, Plans, Priorities

In recent years, the PLAN has become more prominent owing to a change in Chinese strategic priorities. The new strategic threats include conflict with the United States and/or a resurgent Japan in areas such as Taiwan or the Spratly Islands. As part of its overall program of naval modernization, the PLAN has a long term plan of developing a blue water navy.

There has been speculation about PLAN building or acquiring an aircraft carrier [1], but the idea appears to have a lower priority than other efforts. Most naval analysts believe that, without significant overall naval modernization, a PLAN aircraft carrier at present would be militarily useless and would take resources away from other parts of the military. This assessment appears to be shared by the Chinese military and political leadership. China currently has the Kuznetsov class Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag in Dalian. China could finish this carrier and make it operational, or simply use it for takeoff and landing training.

In June 2005, it was reported by boxun.com that China would build a 30 billion yuan (US$362 million) carrier with a displacement of 78,000 tons, to be built by the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai. The rumor was dismissed by defense official Zhang Guangqin.

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Major Upgrades in the 21st Century

Image:Destroyer sovremenny.jpg China has made serious headway in just the last few years by increasing the strength of its Navy with the purchase of Sovremenny class destroyers and Kilo class submarines. The first two destroyers were equipped with the deadly SS-N-22 missile that has been dubbed an "aircraft-carrier killer" by many Western defence analysts. Furthermore, two improved versions of the destroyer are equipped with more numerous, improved versions of the missile called the Yakhont, and several more of those ships are being built.

China's submarine fleet has also made major strides. The Kilo-class subs are very quiet, and are also equipped with two next-generation weapons: the Klub anti-ship cruise missile, and the VA-111 Shkval torpedo. Many Chinese subs, including the Kilo, are also thought to have air-independent propulsion which would allow them to lie in wait underwater for long periods of time to surprise enemies.

Chinese naval production has made great technological strides, with Russian assistance, and its latest destroyers are using more local hardware that comes closer to Western standards with Aegis-style radars and stealth hull design.

A large, modernized and aggressive Chinese navy is frequently featured in military science fiction, particularly in speculative future conflicts with the United States Navy.

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Activities

Chinese warships cruise near gas field claimed by Japan "on Sept. 9 near the Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea — the site of a fierce Sino-Japan territorial dispute, Tokyo military officials said."

The warships included:

  • 23,000-ton replenishment vessel
  • 7,940-ton Sovremenny-class missile destroyer
  • 6,000-ton missile observation support ship
  • 1,702-ton Jianghu I-class missile frigate
  • 1,702-ton Jianghu I-class missile frigate
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Fleets

The People's Liberation Army Navy is divided into three fleets.

2006 March 10, People's Liberation Army Lt. Gen. Wang Zhiyuan announced that China will research and build an aircraft carrier and develop a CVBG.Template:Ref Observers said the first carrier would be deployed to secure South China Sea energy supply line.

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Destroyers

Image:PLAN Harbin.jpg

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Frigates

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Submarines

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See also

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External links and sources

Template:PLAvi:Hải quân Trung Quốc zh:中华人民共和国海军

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