How Big Is The Chinese Liberation Army Navy?

The People's Republic of China's Navy, known formally as the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has altered its inward-looking stance and is expanding strongly in concert with China's transition to a global superpower. It should not necessarily be seen as a preparation to being an aggressor, but as an obvious 'gearing up' to defending its expanding trade routes, strategic raw material imports and export pipeline. It is now an active participator in the Combined Naval Task Force, deterring piracy off the Somali coastline.

Size

The US Navy is the largest in the world with over three hundred thousand personnel, but China ranks second at about 2/3 that size, like for like. Tonnage-wise, the US fleet comes in at about three million tons, whilst China's is just about three hundred and fifty thousand tons with a much lower average tonnage per vessel. Relative to the world's fighting tonnage, China's measures at about three percent. The Indian Navy is also expanding rapidly with almost 2% of tonnage.

Efficiency

Can they deliver? This is difficult to evaluate - it includes quality of crew, equipment quality, training quality, operational exercise intensity, command and control structures and systems (and this embraces a political aspect too), average age of equipment, equipment servicing effectiveness, logistics systems, technology development rates, and many other factors. "Much room for improvement" is how most pundits would mark the PLAN.

Does the PLAN have and edge and where are they weak?

The main points are:

A commitment to expansion is arguably the most important, as the senior command is focused on growing fleet and effectiveness aggressively, with the support of the government. India, probably, is the only other country where the naval command and politicians are aligned so effectively.

The naval budget also is critical, and China appears to be growing its naval budget quickly. However, budget isn't everything, as the country has to expand its naval/industrial complex to deliver. You can buy an automobile plant, but not advanced naval construction capability off the shelf. This is most apparent in the case of aircraft carriers, where they are building their construction capability - they bought the uncompleted Varyag carrier from the Ukraine and have been tinkering with it for years. They now have two conventional and two nuclear powered carriers in their plans, but it's likely to take ten to fifteen years before they are operational.

Defence electronics is a critical area too, but given China's aerial electronics momentum, then 'technology drag' is less likely to be an issue.

With advanced (even unique) munitions, the effectiveness of a navy relative to others can be improved. China has weapons such as the Dong Feng 21D anti-carrier missile and the EM52 rocket propelled mine .

It can be argued that the PLAN is weakened by a complex command structure which has both executive and political chains of command. These structures have been tested in various wars - for example by North Vietnam. Some commentators would claim that lower effectiveness is compensated for with greater numbers of personnel.

Disposition

The Chinese navy is organised into three fleets: the North Sea Fleet (HQ Quindao), the East Sea Fleet (HQ Ningbo), and the South Sea Fleet (HQ Zhanjiang). There are at least as many minor bases as major bases.


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