‘The National Interest’: China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than United States

Photo: ‘The National Interest’

"China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than that of the United States.” That is the headline by Cathalijne Adams in a blog post for the Alliance for American Manufacturing in January 2023.

The situation has only worsened for the Americans since then, notes ‘The National Interest’. A common response to the problem is to claim that while China may be able to build more ships, those ships are technologically inferior to those of the U.S. Navy.

Well, even that is wrong.

Chinese warships are increasingly technologically proficient. What’s more, they are designed with the specific intention of overwhelming U.S. warships with superior firepower. Further, the Ukraine War, which has alienated both China and Russia from the West and sent the two countries into a warm embrace. Moscow announced that it will begin sharing with China the specifications for advanced submarine propulsion systems that previous Russian governments had refused to share with Beijing.

These capabilities, combined with China’s impressive manufacturing capacity, means only one thing: America’s days of fielding the largest and most technologically advanced navy are numbered.

Look at the sad state of existing U.S. Navy warships. Countless warships have been photographed with rusty, discolored hulls. This indicates they are being run ragged and are not properly maintained, likely due to the constraints of U.S. military shipyards, as well as deferred maintenance.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has grown decisively, in sophistication as well as numbers. In fact, some reports suggest that the PLAN will reach 435 ships by 2030.

The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, has around 300 ships. This has created a numerical imbalance between the U.S. Navy and the PLAN. At some point, China will no longer be deterred by the simple presence of an American flat top sailing very near China’s shores.

American warships are technically superior to China’s – for now. One area U.S. warships have an advantage over their PLAN rivals is in the domain of radar systems, missile defense, and electronic warfare (EW). Plus, the U.S. Navy leads the world in number of aircraft carriers. Sadly, these platforms are increasingly obsolete. China’s development of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems that could destroy the aircraft carriers in question is a sign that America should stop building these vessels.

How did the United States go from the “arsenal of democracy” 80 years ago to having no weapons to spare at all?

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