The PLAN Buildup: How China Built the World's Largest Navy and What It Means for the Strait
The People’s Liberation Army Navy has added more ships to its fleet in the past twenty years than most countries have in their entire navies. By hull count, the PLAN is now the largest navy in the world, surpassing the United States Navy in number of surface combatants and submarines. The comparison requires qualification — American vessels are generally larger, more capable on a per-unit basis, and operated by more experienced crews in a navy with a longer tradition of sustained blue-water operations. But the qualification should not obscure the fundamental shift: China has built a navy capable of contesting American naval supremacy in the western Pacific, and it has done so on a timeline that surprised most Western defense analysts.
The Type 055 destroyer is the most visible symbol of what the PLAN has become. Displacing approximately 12,000 tons, it is larger than the American Ticonderoga-class cruisers that have formed the backbone of carrier strike group air defense for decades. It carries a vertical launch system of 112 cells, capable of fielding anti-air missiles, land-attack cruise missiles, and anti-ship weapons. It has an integrated electric propulsion system, active electronically scanned array radars, and sensor fusion capabilities that place it in the same tier as the most capable Western surface combatants. China has commissioned multiple Type 055s and is producing additional units. The class would have been considered aspirational a decade ago. It is operational today.
The submarine force represents a more contested capability assessment. China operates a mix of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, nuclear-powered attack submarines, and a large fleet of conventionally powered attack submarines. The conventional submarine force — Type 039 and its variants — is numerically significant and has improved substantially in acoustic quieting and weapons systems integration over successive generations. American antisubmarine warfare analysts assess the modern Type 039 variants as meaningfully harder to detect than earlier Chinese submarines, reflecting sustained investment in the technology gap that ASW depends on. The nuclear-powered attack submarine force has lagged in acoustic performance relative to American SSNs, but the gap has been narrowing.
The carrier program reflects a Chinese decision to develop the full range of naval capabilities associated with great power status rather than to accept a purely anti-access force optimized for the near seas. The Fujian, China’s third carrier and its first with electromagnetic catapult launch systems equivalent to those on the USS Gerald R. Ford, demonstrates the ability to operate a carrier air wing comparable in aircraft type and sortie generation potential to American carrier aviation. The immediate tactical utility of Chinese carriers in a Taiwan contingency is limited — they would operate in a threat environment that their own anti-ship missiles have made dangerous for American carriers, and they face the same anti-ship threats from Taiwan and allied forces. Their strategic significance is that they signal a Chinese intent to build a global navy, not merely a regional one.
The amphibious component of the PLAN has received investment that tracks directly with Taiwan contingency planning. The Type 075 landing helicopter dock, which can carry helicopters, landing craft, and marine units for amphibious assault operations, is operational in multiple hulls. The Type 071 amphibious transport dock provides additional lift. The marine corps has been expanded and its equipment modernized. The total amphibious lift capacity of the PLAN, supplemented by the requisitioned civilian roll-on/roll-off fleet that PLA planners have integrated into military logistics, can move enough forces to mount a serious crossing attempt against a prepared defender — which is not the same as saying it can mount a successful one.
The question that matters for Taiwan is not whether the PLAN is now larger than the US Navy. It is whether the combination of PLAN capabilities, PLA Rocket Force anti-access systems, and PLA Air Force support can deny American naval forces the ability to intervene effectively in the strait in the time window that matters for Taiwan’s survival. That question is harder to answer than hull counts suggest, and the honest answer is that the military balance has become genuinely uncertain in a way it was not a decade ago.