Shipbuilding Feeds China's Ambitions --- Country's shipyards are ready for a protracted war, but U.S. lags far behind

"China emerged as a global power by turning itself into the world's factory floor. It is expanding that power -- and its military might -- by becoming the world's shipyard.

More than half of the world's commercial shipbuilding output last year came from China. Most of what China doesn't build comes from South Korea and Japan. Europe accounts for just 5%; the U.S., next to nothing.

"The scale [of China's shipbuilding] is just almost hard to fathom," said Thomas Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security whose research focuses on maritime competition.

This shipbuilding empire is a symbol of China's historic transformation from an inward-looking continental nation to a maritime power -- and a pivotal strategic asset for Beijing as President Xi Jinping tries to reshape the world order in peacetime and prepares to prevail in war.

Giant Chinese shipbuilding firms that crank out containerships, oil tankers and bulk carriers for shipping lines from China, the West and even Taiwan are often the same ones building warships for China's navy. With their order books full for years to come, the shipyards have expanded, trained enormous pools of workers and built sprawling supply chains.

China's military planners have leveraged all that to build up the world's largest navy, in hull count -- a force central to Xi's ambitions to project power overseas, protect sea lanes that connect China to the world and absorb Taiwan.

The U.S.'s once-robust shipbuilding industry no longer produces any significant number of commercial oceangoing ships. Several shipyards have only one big customer, the Navy, and those shipyards are often battling backlogs, worker shortages, a paucity of suppliers and cost overruns.

"China benefits from a massive commercial shipbuilding workload," Rear Adm. Thomas J. Anderson said to a congressional subcommittee in May, when he was the program executive officer for ships in the U.S. Navy. Meanwhile, he said, the U.S. government largely goes it alone, bearing all the costs of the ships and associated infrastructure.

In a protracted conflict, China's shipyards would give its navy a significant upper hand. They would be able to quickly accelerate production, replace lost ships and repair damaged ones. That is a capability U.S. shipyards brought to World War II, building Allied vessels faster than German U-boats could sink them.

Today, the U.S.'s shipyards struggle to keep up with peacetime demand. Submarines are bogged down by maintenance delays and new ones are behind schedule. There isn't enough trained labor, dry docks are in short supply, and in the case of some critical components, only a handful of vendors are still standing.

This is especially troubling, U.S. strategists said, in light of what the Ukraine conflict has shown: Conflicts can last a long time, and fighting them requires industry. The U.S.'s weapons factories have struggled to keep up with Ukraine's battlefields. Its munition makers -- and shipyards -- aren't ready for a war with China.

If the U.S. intervened in a conflict over Taiwan, U.S. forces would need to stop Chinese ships from reaching the island and discharging equipment and thousands of troops. Each side would try to take enemy ships off the board to prevent those ships from firing their missiles.

Both sides would need to quickly get damaged ships repaired and able to use their firepower. The U.S. would struggle, not least because modern shipyard workers need to be trained.

China's advantage is visible on an island near Shanghai, at the mouth of the river Yangtze. Two immense shipyards are located on the island, known as Changxing, concentrating a great deal of ship-making power in one place.

Changxing Island is being transformed into a colossal "shipbuilding base," wrote the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a May report. The buildup started with the relocation of the Jiangnan shipyard from central Shanghai through 2005 to 2008, followed by the transfer of a second shipyard, Hudong Zhonghua, still under way.

The shipyards belong to subsidiaries of state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corp., whose clients range from the Chinese navy to foreign shipping lines. French shipping giant CMA CGM signed a $3 billion deal last year with it for 16 containerships, after ordering 22 vessels two years before that. Taiwan's Evergreen Marine is also a big customer.

Satellite images from May obtained from Maxar Technologies show Jiangnan's vast facility. Around two dozen ships are visible, some new, others apparently in for refurbishment or repairs. There are what appear to be containerships, destroyers and China's third aircraft carrier.

Satellite images of Jiangnan analyzed by CSIS in recent years captured an Evergreen vessel docked alongside three Chinese warships and, in another instance, the identifiable green of an Evergreen hull next to the Chinese aircraft carrier. A dry dock used for the carrier was earlier occupied by a containership being built for CMA CGM, the CSIS analysis showed, suggesting that resources were being shared between the commercial and military side of operations.

"All these countries that are buying ships from China are paying China to build the shipyards they would need to repair China's fleet in wartime," said Shugart of the Center for a New American Security. "It's kind of hard to watch."

CMA CGM didn't respond to a request for comment. Evergreen said that its vessels were being built by the commercial department of China State Shipbuilding Corp., which it said was separate from the military department. Evergreen's shipbuilding contracts are of a purely civil commercial nature, it said.

China's navy fields 370 battle force ships, more than the U.S. Navy, and is expected to grow to 435 by 2030. Its shipyards are building increasingly sophisticated warships, such as the Renhai-class surface combatant. They have also built the world's largest coast guard and fishing fleets, and an extensive merchant marine.

The U.S. Navy is expected in the next several years to stay at the present 292 hulls or shrink -- retiring more ships than it commissions -- before it starts to grow again. The logistics support and sealift fleet that helps the military is aging.

The U.S. Navy has superior platforms, such as a large number of aircraft carriers. But naval strategists increasingly argue that fleet size also matters.

Carlos Del Toro, the U.S. Navy secretary, said he is looking hard at shipbuilding. He has directed a review of the causes of U.S. shipbuilding problems and is seeking recommendations for a shipbuilding industrial base "that provides combat capabilities that our warfighters need, on a schedule that is relevant," according to the Navy." [1]

The killer of the dragon, Gabrielius Landsbergis, should attack China in this place. I've seen him preparing an old bathtub, but it's a secret.

1. World News: Shipbuilding Feeds China's Ambitions --- Country's shipyards are ready for a protracted war, but U.S. lags far behind. Mandhana, Niharika.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 14 Feb 2024: A.7.