China’s shipbuilding capacity is greater than that of the United States

A Chinese warship arrives in Tokyo to a greeting crowd. (Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Bloomberg)

The U.S. Navy estimates that China’s shipbuilding capacity is over 200 times that of the United States. China has increased its shipbuilding activities in support of their long-term strategic plans, building both commercial and military ships. China currently has more naval ships than the United States does, and the gap is estimated to increase in China’s favor in the next decade.

From Fox News:

The slide also shows the “battle force composition” of the countries’ two navies side-by-side, which includes “combatant ships, submarines, mine warfare ships, major amphibious ships, and large combat support auxiliary ships.” The ONI estimated that China had 355 such naval vessels in 2020 while the U.S. had 296. The disparity is expected to continue to grow every five years until 2035, when China will have an estimated 475 naval ships compared to 305-317 U.S. ships.

Another section of the slide provides an estimate on the percentage each country allocates to naval production in its shipyards, with China garnering roughly 70% of its shipbuilding revenue from naval production, compared to about 95% of American shipbuilding revenue.

However, that disparity is also concerning, Sadler said, who noted that China would gain a strategic advantage by having a robust commercial shipbuilding sector.

“Shipbuilding is a strategic industry, and they realized that a long time ago,” Sadler said of China. “The first part was build up your commercial shipbuilding sector … commercial shipbuilding really was the genesis for all of this massive capacity. It’s a lesson that you can’t have naval shipbuilding without a commercial shipbuilding sector and the Chinese have been doing that for 30 years.”

Because of China’s centrally planned economy, the country is able to control labor costs and provide subsidies to its shipbuilding infrastructure, allowing the Chinese to outbid most competitors around the world and dominate the commercial shipping industry, Sadler said.

On the military side, Sadler noted that the Chinese began to acquire technology from the Soviet Union, later Russia, and Ukraine, modeling many of their naval vessels after technology from those countries.

“Then you get more shipyard workers, and sometimes these commercial shipyards, one side’s building tankers, LNG ships and container ships, and right next door, they’re building cruisers and destroyers, sometimes with the same shipyard workers,” Sadler said.

Sadler argued that the U.S. has not built a comparable shipbuilding infrastructure because builders only have the U.S. government as a customer.

Fox News has a lot more information at this link.

Category: China, International Affairs, Navy