HONG KONG, Oct 9 (Portal) – A submarine arms race is heating up as China begins producing a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines, posing for the first time a challenge to growing efforts by the United States and its allies to Tracking down boats should represent.
Analysts and regional defense attachés say evidence is mounting that China is on track to have its Type 096 ballistic missile submarine operational before the end of the decade, with breakthroughs in silence due in part to Russian technology are attributable.
Research discussed at a conference at the U.S. Naval War College in May and published by the school’s China Maritime Studies Institute in August suggests the new ships will be far more difficult to keep track of. According to seven analysts and three military attachés based in Asia, this conclusion is credible.
“The Type 096s are going to be a nightmare,” said Christopher Carlson, a retired Navy submariner and technical intelligence analyst, one of the researchers. “They will be very, very difficult to detect.”
The discreet attempt to detect China’s nuclear-powered and armed ballistic missile submarines, so-called SSBNs, is one of the main reasons for the increased deployment and contingency planning of the US Navy and other militaries in the Indo-Pacific region. This push is expected to intensify as Type 096 enters service.
The Chinese navy routinely conducts fully armed nuclear deterrence patrols with its older Type 094 boats from Hainan Island in the South China Sea, the Pentagon said in November, similar to patrols conducted for years by the United States, Britain, Russia and France.
However, the Type 094s, which carry China’s most advanced submarine-launched JL-3 missile, are considered relatively noisy – a major handicap for military submarines.
The paper notes that the Type 096 submarine can compete with state-of-the-art Russian submarines in terms of stealth, sensors and armament. It said expanding capabilities would have “profound” implications for the U.S. and its Indo-Pacific allies.
Based in part on Chinese military journals, internal speeches by senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers, and patent data, the paper traces more than 50 years of the PLA Navy’s often glacial development of nuclear submarines.
It includes satellite images taken in November at China’s new Huludao shipyard that show pressure hull sections of a large submarine that are currently being reworked. This puts construction on schedule to make the boats operational by 2030, as stated in the Pentagon’s annual reports on China’s military.
The study also describes potential breakthroughs in specific areas, including pump-jet propulsion and internal noise suppressors, based on “imitative innovation” of Russian technology.
Neither the Russian nor Chinese defense ministries responded to Portal’ requests for comment.
The ship will likely be significantly larger than the Type 094, allowing it to include an internal “raft” mounted on complex rubber supports to muffle engine noise and other noise, similar to Russian designs.
Carlson told Portal he did not believe China had obtained Russia’s “crown jewels” – its very latest technology – but would build a submarine so stealthy it could be compared to Moscow’s improved Akula boats.
“We have a difficult time finding and tracking the improved Akulas in their current form,” Carlson said.
Singapore-based defense scientist Collin Koh said the research opened a window to discrete research projects to improve China’s SSBNs and strengthen its submarine warfare capabilities.
“They know they are behind the curve, so they are trying to catch up in terms of reassurance and drive,” said Koh of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Carlson said he believes China’s strategists, like Russia, would keep SSBNs in protective “bastions” near the coast, using recently fortified bases in the disputed South China Sea.
ECHO OF THE COLD WAR
The prospect of advanced SSBNs will significantly complicate an already intense battle for underground surveillance.
Echoing the Cold War-era hunt for Soviet “boomers,” the pursuit of Chinese submarines is increasingly an international effort, with Japanese and Indian militaries supporting the United States, Australia and Britain, analysts and military attachés say.
Anti-submarine warfare exercises are increasing, as is the deployment of P-8 Poseidon submarine-hunting aircraft in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.
The United States, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, Britain and New Zealand operate the advanced aircraft, which uses sonobuoys and other more advanced techniques such as scanning the ocean surface to find submarines far below.
The United States is also conducting the biggest overhaul of its top-secret underwater surveillance network since the 1950s to counter China’s growing presence, Portal reported in September.
The prospect of a quieter Chinese SSBN is partly driving the AUKUS deal between Australia, Britain and the US, which will see increased deployment of British and US attack submarines in Western Australia. Australia expects to launch its first nuclear-powered attack submarines using British technology in the 2030s.
“We’re at a fascinating point here,” said Alexander Neill, a Singapore-based defense analyst. “China is on the right track with a new generation of submarines ahead of the first AUKUS boats – even if they are on par in terms of performance, that is of great importance,” said Neill, an associate fellow at the Pacific Forum think tank Hawaii.
Even if China’s submarine force achieves technological parity, it will need to train aggressively and intensively over the next decade to match AUKUS capabilities, he added.
Vasily Kashin, a Moscow-based Chinese military scientist at HSE University, said it was possible that Chinese engineers had made the breakthroughs described in the report.
Although China most likely received some key technologies from Russia in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is no known joint agreement between Beijing and Moscow other than a 2010 nuclear reactor deal, Kashin said.
He said China may have made progress through adaptations of Russian designs and through other sources, including espionage, but was unlikely to have the latest generation of Russian systems.
“China is not an adversary of Russia in the naval field,” Kashin said. “It doesn’t create problems for us, it creates problems for the United States.”
Reporting by Greg Torode; additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Edited by Gerry Doyle
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.
Acquire license rights, opens new tab