The PRC is in the beginning stages of operating what the PLA calls its “multi-carrier force.” The PRC continues to learn lessons from operating its first aircraft carrier, Liaoning. Its first domestically-built aircraft carrier, CV-17 Shandong, was launched in 2017 and commissioned in December 2019. The PRC’s next generation of carriers, the new FUJIAN-class—the first of which it is currently outfitting—will have greater endurance and an electromagnetic catapult launch system making it capable of launching various types of specialized fixed-wing aircraft for missions such as airborne early warning and EW. This will increase the striking power of a potential PLAN carrier battle group when deployed to areas beyond China’s immediate periphery. CV-18 Fujian launched in June 2022 and is expected to commission in 2024.
The PLAN’s newest amphibious ships, the YUSHEN LHA and YUZHAO amphibious transport docks (LPD), are modern platforms capable of regional and global expeditionary missions in support of both wartime and non-war contingency operations either singly or as part of capable and flexible task groups composed of multiple amphibious ships and surface combatants.
The PLAN continues to build multiple new, large auxiliary ships that can support force projection operations, including large logistic ships such as the FUYU fast combat support ship (AOE) and specialized platforms for intelligence collection ships (AGI) and ocean surveillance ships (AGOS).
The PLAN’s ability to perform missions beyond the FIC is modest but growing as it gains more experience operating in distant waters and acquires larger and more advanced platforms. The PRC’s experience in extended range operations primarily comes from extended task group deployments and its ongoing counterpiracy mission in the Gulf of Aden. Other recent extended range PLAN operations include the following:
- In September 2022, a PLAN task group that included a RENHAI class cruiser operated with four Russian combatants near the Aleutian Islands and was shadowed by U.S. Coast Guard ships and aircraft.
- In December 2022 and January 2023, a PLAN task force including a LUYANG III DDG operated in the South Pacific near French Polynesia.
- In December 2022, CV-16 Liaoning with escorts including two RENHAI-class cruisers operated in the Philippine Sea near Japan’s Daito Islands in an area similar to where Liaoning deployed to in December 2021.
- In February 2023, a PLAN task group, that included YUSHEN-class LHA-31, conducted training in the SCS and Western Pacific. This was the first extended range deployment for the newly commissioned LHA.
- The PLAN sustained its counter-piracy task groups in the Gulf of Aden through 2022, a 14-year effort that is the PRC’s first enduring naval operation beyond the Indo-Pacific region. In January 2022, the 39th Naval Escort Task Force conducted a three-day escort of Chinese fishing vessels in the Gulf of Aden. Overall, according to Chinese state media, the PLAN has expanded
54
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China
