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The Chinese navy may soon receive a boost to its ability to fight amphbious warfare following the quiet launch of the service's fourth Type 075 assault ship.
The new Type 075 Landing Helicopter Dock, three of which have already been commissioned, was launched at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in coastal Shanghai, where it was seen by local ship spotters.
A photograph shared to Weibo, China's X-like microblogging platform, showed the helicopter carrier in the water and surrounded by tug boats on December 14.
The warship's presence was yet another sign of the People's Liberation Army's massive military buildup under President Xi Jinping, whose sizable land forces are now being complemeted by advanced fighter and strategic bomber aircraft, as well as a "far seas" fleet of aircraft carriers and large destroyers.
The PLA Navy is already the largest naval service in the world in terms of surface combatant numbers. If current shipbuilding trends continue, it will soon overtake the U.S. Navy in terms of tonnage, too.
To be sure, U.S. Navy warfighting experience and technical know-how will be hard to match in the short term. Apart from outmatching China's active carrier fleet by 11 to two, the United States also boasts mature nuclear propulsion, which the Chinese navy has yet to adopt for its "flat-top" warships.
But the service's focus on amphbious assault ships like the Type 075 speaks to the PLA Navy's desire to solve the issue of amphibious lift, an untested area for a military that has traditionally trained for land wars with China's neighbors.
The Type 075, measuring just over 750 feet in length, has a displacement of up to 40,000 tons, according to publicly available records. It can transport 800 troops, 28 helicopters, 60 armored fighting vehicles, and up to two landing craft for the Chinese navy's marines.
Beijing's escalating tensions with neighbors in the East and South China seas—over historically disputed territories and exclusive maritime zones—suggest the PLA Navy's future role is one of power projection into the Pacific and beyond.
China is planning to commission eight Type 075 helicopter carriers, and all will be built by state-owned Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding.
The first ship in the class, the Hainan, was commissioned into the PLA Navy during a grand ceremony in April 2021. Xi himself was present at the event at a naval base in Sanya, in China's southernmost Hainan province, on the South China Sea.
The Hainan was launched in September 2019 and underwent sea trials in August 2020.
The Guangxi, the Chinese navy's second Type 075, was launched in April 2020, began sea trials in December 2020, and was commissioned in December 2022. The next helicopter carrier, the Anhui, followed a similar timeline: launched and tested at sea in January and November 2021, before joining the PLA Navy's East Sea Fleet the following October.
"With a straight flight deck and a hangar-like well deck, the Type 075 LHD can carry helicopters, air-cushioned landing craft, and amphibious armored vehicles in multidimensional landing operations," said a recent report by the state-backed Global Times newspaper.
The ability to transport China's ground forces quickly and safely will be critical for any future fight over maritime territory, or in a hypothetical amphibious invasion of Taiwan, which U.S. officials say will require a D-Day-style operation more complex than the Normandy landings of 1944—unprecedented in modern warfare.
The Global Times quoted one military expert as saying the Type 075 would be superior to the PLA Navy's Type 071 amphibious transport dock, the ninth and last of which was commissioned in 2020.
Both vessel types will also be used for humanitarian missions in peacetime.
Shanghai is the cradle of Chinese shipbuilding and is where China's third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, is being fitted out. The Chinese navy's carrier, dubbed the Type 003, was launched in June 2022 and could be preparing for its maiden sea trials, according to recent analysis of its movements by satellite.
The Fujian, which will match the U.S. Navy's latest carriers in size but not in capability or deployment times, was also pictured testing its new electromagnetic catapult system, which will launch China's next-generation carrier-based fighter jets.
About the writer
Aadil Brar is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers international security, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian ... Read more