The PLA Navy Comes of Age: Big Decks and More

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will remember 2024 as the year its big-deck ship force came of age, with the service unveiling many firsts in production and operations. Among the most noteworthy was the much-publicized December launch of the first Type 076 amphibious assault ship (LHA/D), the Sichuan. Global Times reported that the ship, which displaces more than 40,000 tons, is the first LHA/D in the world to carry electromagnetic catapult and arresting gear, “allowing it to launch manned and unmanned combat aircraft . . . similar to an aircraft carrier.”¹ The Sichuan joins three operational 40,000-ton Type 075 LHDs—the Hainan, Guangxi, and Anhui—in addition to eight Type 071 amphibious transport docks (LPDs). The size of this fleet reflects the seriousness with which China’s Central Military Commission is heeding Xi Jinping’s directive to have the capability to take Taiwan.

The PLAN’s third aircraft carrier—the 80,000-ton, conventionally powered Fujian, which was unveiled in June 2022—conducted three sea trials between May and July 2024. While these trials focused on basic systems such as propulsion, navigation, and electronics, a fourth in September included the first tests of the ship’s three advanced electromagnetic catapults.² 

In addition, visible on the Fujian’s flight deck for the first time were mock-ups of several aircraft, including one of the future KJ-600 early warning aircraft.³ Also, tire marks were visible on the flight deck, most likely indicating PLAN jet aircraft performing touch-and-gos, with full arrested landings and electromagnetic take-offs not yet having been achieved.⁴ By the end of December, the Fujian had completed five sea trials. Additional tests in 2025 should include the first aircraft launches and recoveries and carrier strike group integration as PLAN leaders seek to achieve initial operational capability.⁵ 

Global Times also revealed testing earlier in the year of a “new aircraft” that could be the J-35 on board the PLAN’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. The report suggested the fighter would be capable of operating from not only the catapults on the Fujian, but also the ski-jumps on the Liaoning and Shandong.⁶

Despite a slowdown in commissionings to allow the PLAN to digest the influx of new ships in recent years, the service continued to produce surface combatants at an alarming rate. In addition to the Sichuan, the PLA Navy also launched 11 combatants amounting to 130,000 tons’ displacement.⁷ This compares to the total tonnage launched and commissioned in 2023 of about 170,000 tons and 110,000 tons in 2022. The annual average prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was about 200,000 tons.⁸

Two Type 055/Renhai-class guided-missile cruisers were launched between March and May at two separate shipyards-—at Jiangnan Dao, offshore of Shanghai, and the Dalian Naval Base on the Liaoning Peninsula in the North Sea Fleet. Previously, from 2020 to 2023, these two shipyards each produced four of the 12,000-ton cruisers, with as many as four more now under construction.⁹ The PLAN has not revealed exactly how many Type 055s it intends to buy. But given the near-term intent to assemble at least four carrier and four expeditionary strike groups, a total of 16 Renhais would ensure all eight strike groups could be escorted by two Type 055 cruisers—each with 112 vertical launch system cells.¹⁰

Operational Highlights

From a strategic standpoint, the most important demonstration of PLAN operations came during Exercise Joint Sword 2024, the two-day exercise in May whose mission was to test the PLA Eastern Theater Command’s ability “to jointly take control of the battlefield and launch joint strikes, and to seize control of crucial areas” around Taiwan.¹¹ PLA warships patrolled the Taiwan Strait and conducted mock strikes against maritime targets, sharing targeting data among PLA naval and air forces for simulated joint strikes for sea control east of Taiwan. In addition, for the first time, PLAN warships coordinated operations during the exercise with China Coast Guard ships off the Taiwanese islands of Kinmen and Matsu, demonstrating another layer of detail that PLA military planners have incorporated into their invasion plans.¹²

Similarly, across eight days in December, more than 60 PLAN and China Coast Guard ships conducted intense winter training around the waters of Taiwan and the first island chain. This power projection surge was important for two reasons. First, as the Jamestown Foundation notes, December operations were meant to demonstrate that PLAN forces are capable of carrying out “far-sea training exercises even during the winter, enhancing their combat capabilities during this season.”¹³ Second, the surge also was intended to signal to the incoming Trump administration that China’s naval capabilities in the western Pacific are at least comparable to those of the U.S. Seventh Fleet based in Japan.

In September, the Liaoning Carrier Strike Group (CSG) conducted flight operations east of Taiwan in the Philippine Sea.¹⁴ This was followed by a 20 September to 1 October transit—unprecedented for a PLAN aircraft carrier—through Japan’s Yonaguni and Iriomote islands at the southern end of the Ryukyu island chain and a little away from Taiwan’s northeastern waters. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) observed the Liaoning’s air wing conduct a total of 630 launch-and-recovery operations of both fighters and helicopters. On 2 October, the JMSDF observed the Liaoning CSG moving southwest into waters east of the Philippines toward the Celebes Sea, off the main island of Mindanao.¹⁵

Later in October, the PLAN for the first time operated two strike groups in the South China Sea, the Liaoning and the Shandong. The dual-carrier force involved at least 11 escorts—destroyers, frigates, and replenishment ships—and included J-15 flight operations from both carriers.¹⁶

The Firsts Just Keep Coming

Additional first-time PLAN operations also occurred. 

In July, three different large PLAN formations operated in the western Pacific simultaneously. 

The PLAN’s Shandong CSG began its first far seas operations of the year by transiting from the South China Sea through the Bashi Channel and into the western Pacific.¹⁷ During the course of the week-long operations, the Shandong’s air wing conducted 240 fixed-wing and 140 helicopter launches and recoveries about 300 miles southeast of Okinawa.¹⁸ (Interestingly, the Shandong CSG returned to the Philippine Seas in August for its second round of carrier flight operations in less than a month.)¹⁹

Concurrently, a three-ship PLAN surface action group (SAG) participated in Joint Sea 2024, the fourth combined China/Russia naval exercise in the Asia-Pacific region since 2021. The Russian and Chinese ships met up in waters south of Jeju Island in the East China Sea before transiting into the Philippine Sea and finishing with live-fire drills in the South China Sea.²⁰

And a few thousand miles to the northeast, four other PLAN warships led by the Type 055 cruiser Lhasa were observed by the JMSDF traveling from the Sea of Japan into the Sea of Okhotsk.²¹ 

These unprecedented simultaneous PLAN CSG and SAG operations came against the backdrop of the month-long U.S. Pacific Fleet–led Rim of the Pacific exercises in the waters off Hawaii that began on 27 June. The timing appears intended as a signal from the PLAN to the United States that China believes it has become the dominant naval power within the first and second island chains.

In more firsts—in mid-June, a Type 075 LHA deployed to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The ship was observed operating near Subi Reef, one of the PLAN’s three major naval bases, this one built between 2013 and 2015 on a semi-submerged reef. This voyage came just days after a PLAN Type 071 LPD that—also for the first time—drilled with air-cushioned landing craft near Sabina Shoal on 4 June.²² Finally, in September, a Type 075 LHD joined the Shandong CSG for exercises in the South China Sea.²³

Combined and Out-of-Area Operations

The PLAN’s combined operations with the Russian Navy included more than Joint Sea 2024 in June. In mid-March, the PLAN dispatched three warships from the North Sea Fleet via the Tsushima Strait for exercises with the Russian Navy in the Sea of Japan. In September, PLA and Russian naval forces conducted Exercise Northern/Interaction-2024 in the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk.²⁴ 

Combined Chinese and Russian operations were not limited to inside the first and second island chains. For example, in March 2024, the PLAN conducted joint military drills with Russia and Iran in the Gulf of Oman. The five-day Maritime Security Belt 2024 exercise involved more than 20 ships, combat boats, support ships, and helicopters.²⁵ According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the exercise’s objective was “enhancing the security of maritime economic activities.” However, against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, the message to the rest of the world was undeniable—that China and Russia were using this exercise to showcase their alliance.²⁶

Speed Bumps, Yet Maintaining Course

Not everything that happened to the PLAN in 2024 was positive. 

First, in November, Admiral Miao Hua was suspended from the Central Military Commission (CMC) and his duties as director of the CMC Political Work Department, which oversees Chinese Communist Party control of the military.²⁷ The exact reasons for Miao’s suspension have not been released, but it was announced he is “under investigation,” presumably for corruption.

Second, Tom Shugart, an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, shared commercial satellite imagery taken from April to July of a previously unreported new type of Chinese nuclear-powered submarine—tentatively labeled as Type 041—that appeared to have suffered a mishap and sank at its fitting-out pier at the Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan. Anonymous Pentagon sources confirmed his analysis to the Wall Street Journal in September.²⁸ 

While much was written about both events, neither appears to represent more than a minor speed bump in the PLAN’s overall modernization plans and capabilities. 

Given the March 2025 announcement that China’s budget for the PLA would increase by 7.2 percent, the outlook for the PLAN’s growth this year is rosy, as the Fujian, two Type 055 cruisers, half a dozen destroyers and frigates, and possibly four nuclear-powered submarines are expected to be commissioned. Combined with its ever-expanding aggressive operations, the PLA Navy in 2025 will continue to change the naval balance of power, not just in East Asia, but increasingly around the globe.