PLA Navy news, pics and videos

FORBIN said:

JH-7A nice video

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A.Man said:

China Vows to Create 'First Class' Navy, Step Up Patrols

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China Vows to Create 'First Class' Navy, Step Up Patrols

Reuters,Newsweek
China will step up patrols and ensure it has a "first class" navy equipped with the best armaments, senior military officers told the official Xinhua news agency, as China steps up its ability to project power far from its shores.

China's navy has been taking an increasingly prominent role in recent months, with a rising star admiral taking command, its first aircraft carrier sailing around self-ruled Taiwan and new Chinese warships popping up in far-flung places.

With President Donald Trump promising a U.S. shipbuilding spree and unnerving Beijing with his unpredictable approach on hot button issues including Taiwan and the South and East China Seas, China is pushing to narrow the gap with the U.S. Navy.

Wang Weiming, deputy chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army Navy, told Xinhua on the sidelines of the annual meeting of parliament that China is speeding up the development of a marine corps, adding destroyers and frigates and will step up air and sea patrols.

"We will intercept any intruding aircraft and follow every military vessel in areas under our responsibility," Wang said. "Our sailors should stay vigilant and be able to deal with emergencies at all times."

China's Liaoning aircraft carrier with accompanying fleet conducts a drill in an area of South China Sea in this undated photo taken December, 2016. Stringer/File Photo/Reuters

China's second, domestically-developed aircraft carrier is in "good shape" and now awaiting fitting, he added, in comments reported late Thursday.

Experts expect it will enter service around 2020, joining China's existing, Soviet-built carrier the Liaoning.

Another senior officer, Li Yanming, political commissar of the Navy's armaments department, said a "first-class navy should be equipped with first-class armaments", the report added.

Navy arms manufacturing would have "better quantity, quality, scope, and functionality", Li said, without elaborating.

China's military ambitions, including taking a more assertive stance in the disputed South China Sea, including building artificial islands and ramping up defense spending, have long rattled its neighbors.

China this year initially failed to publicly release its defense budget on the opening day of parliament as it has done in previous years, finally saying a day later on Monday that it would rise by 7 percent to 1.044 trillion yuan ($151.12 billion).

China's defense spending amounts to only about a quarter of the U.S. defense budget, though many experts believe its actual spending on the military to be higher than the official figure.

China denies it is a military threat to anyone.

Wang Huayong, deputy political commissar of the Eastern Theatre Command, told Xinhua that Chinese forces are for defensive purposes only.

"The aircraft carrier is still in training and trial stage. The marines remain weak, and the number and quality of long-distance vessels do not meet expectations."

China's navy is not seeking to be a bully or trying to build a force beyond a level compatible with the country's development and its military still lags behind China's current power and status, he said.

"We have never gone to the doorstep of others to show off our military power," he said. "The construction on the South China Sea islands are mostly civilian in nature, a right bestowed by the international law."

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Blackstone said:

Oh really? So, the 1979 invasion of Vietnam was just a misunderstanding? Tourists that got lost maybe?

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As overseas ambitions expand, China plans 400 per cent increase to marine corps numbers, sources say

PLA will increase fighting force to 100,000 personnel, allowing for deployment in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and Gwadar in southwest Pakistan, military insiders say

China plans to increase the size of its marine corps from about 20,000 to 100,000 personnel to protect the nation’s maritime lifelines and its growing interests overseas, military insiders and experts have said.

Some members would be stationed at ports China operates in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and Gwadar in southwest Pakistan, they said.

The expanded corps is part of a wider push to refocus the world’s largest army away from winning a land war based on sheer numbers and towards meeting a range of security scenarios using highly specialised units. Towards that end, Chinese President Xi Jinping is reducing the size of the People’s Liberation Army by 300,000, with nearly all of the cuts coming from the land forces.

Military insiders told the South China Morning Post that two brigades of special combat soldiers had already been moved to the marines, nearly doubling its size to 20,000, and more brigades would be added. “The PLA marines will be increased to 100,000, consisting of six brigades in the coming future to fulfil new missions of our country,” one source said, adding the size of the navy would also grow 15 per cent. Its current size is estimated at 235,000 personnel.

Liu Xiaojiang, a former navy political commissar, said the maritime force would take on an increasingly central role in the military.

“China is a maritime country and as we defend our maritime rights and develop our interests, the status of the navy will be more important,” Liu told reporters on the sidelines of the annual Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beijing on March 5.

Traditionally, marines have mostly operated only in China’s costal areas, as their role was limited by their relatively small numbers and basic equipment, said Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie.

But a bigger corps could be deployed much farther afield as the navy takes on more challenges.

“Besides its original missions of a possible war with Taiwan, maritime defence in the East and South China seas, it’s also forseeable that the PLA Navy’s mission will expand overseas, including protection of China’s national security in the Korean peninsula, the country’s maritime lifelines, as well as offshore supply deports like in Djibouti and Gwadar port in Pakistan,” Li said.

“However, the current size of the marines and its equipment are very limited and not enough to cope with the upcoming new challenges.”

China is constructing a naval base in Djibouti to provide what it calls logistical support in one of the world’s busiest waterways. The defence ministry said in a statement last year that the facility was mostly for resupply purposes for anti-piracy, humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.

Former colonial power France and the United States also maintain sizeable bases in Djibouti, with the latter’s Camp Lemonnier home to more than 4,000 personnel. China has not said how many people its base can accommodate, although some media reports have put the figure as high as 10,000.

Gwadar port is a deep sea port next to the Strait of Hormuz, the key oil route in and out of the Persian gulf, built with Chinese funding and operated by mainland firms. Although the port is not home to any PLA installation, navy ships are expected to dock at the facility in the near future.

Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Dong said an expanded marine corps could help maintain security for China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative. The plan calls for new trade and investment links stretching from Southeast Asia to eastern Europe, and will likely see Chinese companies as well as their workers operating in high-risk areas such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The marines were established in the 1950s in the aftermath of the civil war between China’s Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists who fled to Taiwan. For decades, Taiwan had the second-largest marine force in the world, after the United States, but its stature began to decline in the 1990s when Beijing began pursuing claims in the South China Sea.

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Franklin said:

China want's to expand its marine corps to 100000 man strong.

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