Ask anything Thread

[kurutoga]

There have been civilizations that have tried to gain power and prosperity by "ruling the waves." Examples of these seapower states would be Athens in ancient Greece, Venice during the dark ages, Portugal in the age of discovery, and most famously the British who built an empire where the sun never sets. A seapower state puts "all of its eggs into one basket", the Navy. A continental power would be the opposite. Its power comes from the land not the sea.
China historically has been a continental power.
Question, can China ever become a Seapower State?

Seapower implies the country is not afraid of conducting constant naval warfare. That is difficult in the era of nuclear weapons. Say country A attacks country B's ships, the proper response might be sending ICBMS to A's capital, not another naval war.

So the navy is really used by large countries against small countries. It's even questionable if US navy and PLA will fight directly over Taiwan, because nuclear escalation is truly out of control when that happens.

But when China fights a small country far away, that is when power projecting is necessary. So yes China is a seapower already, but not in the traditional sense. Remember China is not US 2.0. China does not want to go to war with anyone unless being pushed like in 1962

 

[tamsen_ikard]

Similar question to what I asked about the PLA Air Force, China is building ships rapidly these days with around 50 destroyers now available and also adding carriers, LHDs and so on. So, is the PLA navy actually expanding its size in terms of number of brigades/personnel? Or are they just retiring older ships and moving personnel, which is what they are doing in the air force.

How big is the PLA Navy in terms of personnel compared to say 2010?

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Similar question to what I asked about the PLA Air Force, China is building ships rapidly these days with around 50 destroyers now available and also adding carriers, LHDs and so on. So, is the PLA navy actually expanding its size in terms of number of brigades/personnel? Or are they just retiring older ships and moving personnel, which is what they are doing in the air force.

Expanding. In fact, much of the ships and boats in the PLAN are less than 20 years old.

For those ships and boats that were commissioned in the 1990s and early-mid 2000s, depending on ship type, there are still around 20-25 years-worth of service life with their hulls, as long as proper maintenance and upkeep are conducted.

How big is the PLA Navy in terms of personnel compared to say 2010?

I don't have any stats on personnel number in 2010, but the latest (i.e. 2022) is around 300 thousand.

For comparison, the US Navy (2021) has around 350 thousand active personnel and 102 thousand ready reserve personnel.

 

[kurutoga]

How big is the PLA Navy in terms of personnel compared to say 2010?

As a side note, PLA navy contains the navy, the marine, the carrier-based naval air force, and land-based naval air force. The traditional land-based naval air force is being moved into the PLA air force.