As it has striven toward superiority in most measures of the Asian military balance, China is now ready to challenge the undersea balance of power, long dominated by the United States, a decisive advantage crucial to its ability to deter blockade and invasion of Taiwan by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
America expended enormous treasure to develop the technology, logistics, training, and personnel to emerge victorious in the Cold War undersea struggle against the former Soviet Union, and to remain superior today; the US is not used to considering the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as a serious undersea threat.
Published in late 1996 just following the 1995 and 1996 Taiwan Straits crises, PLAN officers would later convey to US counterparts they were insulted by the late Tom Clancy’s novel SSN, the acronym for nuclear attack submarine, in which the US Navy Los Angeles class SSN USS Cheyenne singlehandedly sank most of the Chinese fleet operating in the South China Sea.
Acutely aware of having missed out on the development of generations of nuclear and conventional submarine technology, the PLA, starting in the 1980s, sought shortcuts by purchasing and stealing foreign technology.
At a major US-Taiwan defense conference in 2001, a German submarine engineer checking up on the new George W. Bush Administration’s decision to sell eight new conventional submarines to Taiwan, told of his company having been hired by China to correct the mistakes Israeli companies made on the early PLAN Type 039 Song class conventional submarine — notorious for its early problems.
The Bush Administration, diverted by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and befuddled by lack of consensus in the US Department of Defense, and then attacks on Taiwan funding from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), famously failed to provide the leadership necessary to realize a new submarine program for Taiwan during the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
But adding insult to injury, from 2004 to 2006 the PLAN purchased and took delivery of eight Russian-built improved Kilo 636M class conventional submarines, known for their impressive acoustic stealth, and armed with the formidable Novator Club family of land attack and anti-ship cruise missiles.
While reluctant to transfer wholesale nuclear and conventional submarine technology, during the 1990s Russia did sell some technology to help the China Shipbuilding Corporation realize its second generation SSN, the Type 093 Shang class, which began construction in 1994 but did not enter service until 2006.
According to the latest issue of Manfred Meyer’s Modern Chinese Maritime Forces (MCMF), edited by Larry Bond and Chris Carlson, the PLAN has two Type 093 Shang-1 and six more progressively improved Type 093A Shang-II SSNs.
Russian technology also aided construction of the PLAN’s second generation nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) armed with 16 JL-2 nuclear armed submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), the Type 094 Jin class which began construction in 2001 and entered service in 2007.
MCMF now credits the PLAN with two Type 094 Jins armed with 16 single warhead 7,700 kilometer range JL-2 SLBMs, and four improved Type 094As most likely armed with 16 multi-warhead 10,000km range JL-3 SLBMs.
Furthermore, MCMF reports the PLAN could be building up to three third generation SSBNs, the Type 096, first reported by the US Department of Defense in the 2017 issue of its annual China Military Power Report.
But starting in the mid-2010s the PLA expanded and improved its two major submarine shipyards; the Bohai Shipbuilding Industry Corporation on the Bohai Sea (or Bohai Shipyard), the center of the PLAN’s nuclear submarine construction, and the Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (Wuchang Shipyard), about 1,800km up the Yangtze River from Shanghai, for conventional submarine construction.
These expanded submarine shipyards are sharply increasing production; MCMF notes that from 2022 to 2024 the Bohai Shipyard has already produced six improved Type 093B Shang-III SSNs, and a September 2024 report from India’s Observer Research Foundation, by retired Indian Rear Admiral Monty Khanna, states that Bohai can annually produce 3 to 4 SSNs and 1 to 1.5 SSBNs.
And Russian submarine technology may be assisting China again; on September 10, 2024 US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters of a new “fundamental alignment” between China and Russia in which Russia is now aiding China with “submarine operations,” or assisting in “areas where previously they had been frankly reluctant to engage directly with China.”
Just as concerning was a September 26 Wall Street Journal report by Michael Gordon citing an unnamed “US official” who revealed that in late May or early June, the PLAN had a “major setback,” a new “nuclear” submarine sank in Wuhan, called the Type 041 Zhou class.
This initially confused both Chinese and Western observers, because the Wuchang Shipyard has traditionally been the center of conventionally powered or non-nuclear powered submarine construction.
For example, in roughly a decade Wuchang built about 16 of the PLAN’s most modern Type 039B conventional submarines (SSK) utilizing a Stirling engine air-independent propulsion (AIP) system which can extend underwater endurance by several days longer than conventional batteries.
But as noted by this analyst in an October 24, 2017 report for the Center For International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), an unprecedented revelation of future PLA Navy programs in the online-revealed lecture slides of retired PLAN Rear Admiral Zhao Dengping (趙登平), indicated that the PLA was developing a then novel very small nuclear powered engine that would recharge the batteries of a SSK-size submarine.
So, the PLA Navy has built its first new hybrid nuclear power assisted conventional submarine (SSPN), that has the advantages of nearly unlimited underwater endurance but is limited in speed by the power generated by batteries, and its smaller size could limit patrol endurance.
But the profound headline is that China is the first nation to produce a “hybrid nuclear” submarine at a fraction of the cost of a nuclear submarine. This means the PLAN can now mass produce both “expensive” nuclear submarines (SSNs) for global missions, and “cheap” nuclear submarines (SSPNs) for extended regional missions.
All of this is not a “setback” for the PLAN; with continuous production, consider a possible 2035 PLAN nuclear submarine fleet with 45 or more Type 093 and Type 095 SSNs, 10 Type 041 SSPNs, and 16 to 20 Type 094 and Type 096 SSBNs, or in excess of 70 “nuclear” powered submarines.
To this should be added continuous PLAN developments in unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) that can be equipped with sensors, powered by new small nuclear charged battery propulsions systems, and perhaps with Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted programming to create ocean-wide autonomous underwater detection and combat capabilities.
And since the mid-2010s, this analyst has observed at foreign military exhibitions, Chinese military electronics companies marketing underwater moored sonar networks that could be spread over thousands of square kilometers and linked to onshore computer processing, to assist PLAN submarines, ships, and aircraft to more rapidly locate and attack US, Japanese and Taiwanese submarines.
This growing PLAN “nuclear” submarine fleet and anti-submarine potential will put increasing pressure on the 24 or so US Navy Virginia class Seawolf class SSNs that will be based largely in Hawaii, with some in Guam and on the US West Coast.
US Navy SSN production is not expected to maintain, much less expand, its fleet of about 50 SSNs vital for global defense and alliance commitments.
By the early 2030s it is possible that a growing PLAN SSN force will begin to chase the six or so US Navy Ohio and then Columbia class SSBNs operating from bases near Seattle, Washington. That, along with six Russian Navy SSNs based in Kamchatka, will threaten this leg of the US “triad” nuclear deterrent force.
All of this points to the absolute necessity for Taiwan to continue the major decisions made at the end of the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration, but accelerated under former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), to build its program of eight Hai Kun (Narwal) class conventional submarines.
To this should be added new efforts to develop large long-range UUVs for surveillance, combat, anti-ship, and anti-submarine missions, and even the mining of Chinese ports. Taiwan should also invest in advanced sea-bed sensor networks to better prosecute PLAN undersea threats.
In addition, it is long overdue for the US and Japanese navies to engage with Taiwan to improve undersea defenses, and to defeat PLAN blockade attempts by building caches of weapons and supplies on nearby Japanese islands, which can be transferred rapidly to Taiwan.
Furthermore, there is now a crisis requirement for the US Navy to break out of its large SSN bias and invest in cheaper, smaller submarines that can be built in larger numbers, plus oceanic combat UUVs to protect US SSBNs and to better exploit the geographic advantage of Japanese, Philippine, and perhaps Taiwanese bases (the first island chain), to contain the PLAN undersea threat.
But the criticality of Taiwan to the future undersea struggle was made clear by retired Chinese submariner Professor Chi Guocang (遲國倉), in an interview for a 2023 issue of the Chinese journal Ordnance Industry Science Technology, translated by Professor Nick Henderson of the China Maritime Studies Institute of the US Naval War College.
Professor Chi stated, “If China does not take back Taiwan island and control the surrounding waters, Chinese strategic nuclear submarines moving towards the Pacific will be subject to the surveillance of the 7th Fleet and US forces stationed at military bases in the Asia-Pacific… recovering Taiwan island and its surrounding affiliated islands is an inevitable requirement… Only by doing so can [China] move beyond the first island chain and be less constrained by imperialist powers. Only then can China’s strategic nuclear submarines form a truly powerful deterrent to strategic opponents.”
This warning is clear: the CCP wants Taiwan to turn it into a base for PLAN SSBNs and SSNs to dominate Asia and then the world. Defending Taiwan and ensuring superior undersea combat capabilities for the US, Japan, and Taiwan navies is essential for the security of all democracies.
Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
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