October 17, 2025:
China is now building its first nuclear powered aircraft carrier. The new ship appears to be similar to the latest class of American carriers, the Fords.
The prospect of a war between China and Pacific Rim democracies increases as China seeks to acquire foreign natural resources by force or negotiations or intimidation. The signs are unmistakable now and have been evolving for over four decades. This Chinese strategy began to emerge as the growth of the Chinese navy began in the 1990s and really accelerated after 2000. This was made possible by China becoming the largest shipbuilder in the world.
In 2024 Chinese yards built more commercial ships, in terms of tonnage, than the American shipbuilding industry had since World War II. The Chinese navy currently consists of nearly 400 ships and that will grow to over 420 ships by 2030. At the same time the U.S. Navy currently has 296 ships and by 2030 will have only 294. There is such an acute shortage of naval shipyards in the United States that the U.S. Navy has begun sending ships needing maintenance and upgrades to South Korea, and possibly Japan as well. Both are within striking distance of the Chinese air force. The U.S. government and naval leadership dismissed the possibility of this catastrophe, preferring to spend most of their budget building new ships and upgrading old ones. This is no longer possible with the small remnants of the American ship building industry.
The main reason the American warship construction and repair industry faded away was cheaper and more efficient competition from Japan, South Korea and finally China. That was a problem because twenty years ago signs first appeared that China planned to have the largest navy in the word. They could do this because they had created the largest shipbuilding industry the world. The Chinese yards were cheaper and faster than anyone else. That was the main reason American shipyards went under. They could no longer compete.
The Chinese navy has been rapidly growing since the 1980s and currently has more ships than the U.S. navy. China has not yet caught up in total tonnage because American warships tend to be heavier. The eleven American nuclear aircraft carriers are something China may never match. China is also way behind when it comes to experience. China admits that it will take decades to match and then surpass the American fleet. China often mentions 2050 as the year Chinese naval power surpasses the United States. Meanwhile China is encountering a lot of expected, and some unexpected problems.
For example, Chinese leader Xi Jinping was shocked and surprised by the growing number of problems in his military. Xi has openly complained about corruption, poor work habits and lack of discipline. Xi ordered a purge of military personnel purportedly responsible for these problems and demanded that officials in charge of military combat and support operations make the changes, or else. Efforts to identify and eliminate corrupt practices and officials responsible for them have not been successful.
Over the last decade there have been multiple purges of corrupt officials, with over a dozen generals, nearly as many admirals and a growing number of senior aerospace and shipbuilding industry officials. This included officers and officials in charge of the rocket forces that maintain short and long range missiles. Many of these missiles were found to be, on closer inspection, inoperable. In late 2023 a former defense minister was removed from the national legislature because of corruption charges.
Xi has found that there are few officials he can trust to be free of corruption and accusations of incompetence. The dismissed senior officers obtained their positions by pretending to get things done but failing to do so in the belief that there would not be a war or threat of war to expose their misdeeds.
This is a serious matter because the government has spent hundreds of billion dollars to build the largest fleet in the world. This process began in 2012 and Xi expected the Chinese fleet to be the world’s largest modern force by 2050. This actually happened in 2025, when the American government and navy leadership were finally convinced that Chinese naval power was a serious threat in the Pacific, and now the Chinese are seeking to become the dominant naval power in the Persian Gulf and waters between there and China.
The Chinese navy still has some serious problems. Corrupt shipyard officials and a navy commanded by corrupt admirals threatens to create an expensive and useless force. On paper the Chinese seem headed for success. Currently the Chinese navy has two aircraft carriers, 75 submarines and 300 other warships. The total number of ships is 743, including a large number of support ships so the navy can operate far into the Pacific or Indian Oceans. China has never had a high seas fleet like this before. This large naval fleet was made possible by China becoming the world's largest builder of commercial ships. Currently about half the world's supply of new cargo, tanker and specialized ships are built in Chinese shipyards. China has become the world’s largest importer of raw materials and exporter of manufactured goods, all of which is moved by ships through seas easily blockaded by ships and aircraft of the United States and Japan. China’s growing fleet is intended to deal with that if necessary.
Another problem with China’s naval expansion is obtaining the well-trained manpower to operate it. This is much truer of China’s navy than its other military services because China lacks a naval or even maritime seagoing tradition of the sort that the United States, Japan, Britain and a few other European nations have. Effective navies must drill at sea constantly, but that requires their ship crews to spend months at a time at sea away from their families. China has discovered a major problem recruiting the necessary well-educated young men willing to do this. The on-going collapse of China’s population size makes this recruitment problem even worse as the yearly pool of males coming of military age plummets.
If China seeks to disrupt the shipping of other nations there could be other problems. The rest of the world regards this new Chinese shipping fleet as a threat if the Chinese fleet is used to threaten merchant fleets of other nations. China decides what is offensive to them and other nations often disagree with the Chinese assessment. This could escalate to violence, as it already has in the South China Sea against the Philippines. Chinese and Filipino warships recently clashed over who could do what in the South China Sea. Other nations in the region and worldwide fear this Chinese misbehavior will spread. By 2025 the other seafaring nations were aware of the threat and developing strategies to slow and then halt the expansion of Chinese naval control. The primary weapons for this task are nuclear and modern diesel electric submarines. Between the United States and its East Asian allies, they can muster nearly a hundred submarines, most of them nuclear. Modern South Korean and Japanese air-independent subm
Meanwhile the Chinese continue to be reminded of what they are up against. For example, in May of this year the American aircraft carrier Truman was called in to deliver a knockout blow against a group that was disrupting commercial ship traffic in the Red Sea. The Truman did so with the largest ever number of airstrikes against a single target, the Houthis in Yemen. It worked and in early May this year Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping ceased.
The carrier Truman also had some difficulties on its way to its airstrike record. Earlier this year the Truman received a small gash in its hull and damage to its right side aircraft elevator when it collided with a merchant ship while approaching the Suez Canal. The Truman went to a port in the Mediterranean where it could have the damage repaired.
This wouldn’t have happened if the May 2019 retirement announcement of Truman had been carried out. This was to save the cost of its mid-life upgrade and refueling of the nuclear reactors. The mid-life upgrade would cost $3.5 billion and takes five years to complete. At that point, Truman could operate another 25 years. That would cost $20 billion. By retiring the Truman the navy would save about $24 billion over 30 years and that money would be used to build new, smaller, ships and buy new weapons. Retiring Truman would also allow the navy to order and build two new Ford class CVNs at once, which would save time and money. The decision to keep Truman in service was not about money, but the fact that the new Ford class CVNs were facing major problems with launching and recovering aircraft, and somewhat less desperate problems with its new radar and some other mechanical systems. Keeping the Truman was also about the seemingly intractable problems the navy has building ships and developing new designs.
In February 2018 the navy confirmed that it had major problems with the design and construction of its new EMALS Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System catapult installed in its latest aircraft carrier; the USS Ford/CVN 78 and the three other Ford-class carriers under construction. These problems were soon fixed and it was noted that the Chinese were also using EMALS on their new carrier and doing so without any obvious problems.