First, a look at the bald comparison:
Scaremongering reports have focused on the headline number of total vessels where China appears to knock the U.S. into a cocked hat.
However, as the author of today’s analysis (not really an academic paper, mea culpa) Nader Elhefnawy from the Miami-Dade Community College explains, this is a misleading comparison.
Drop down to the next line in the table and China’s advantage of 434-vessels to the U.S.’s 192 vanishes when you strip out vessels with only littoral capability.
Then we see the U.S. has 192-vessels with full ocean going ability versus China’s 155. A little further down and the advantage shrinks further when total tonnage is compared. America tips the scales with 2.78m tonnes of kit versus China’s 900,000.
However, the comparison is complicated when you consider America’s tonnage advantage is mainly due to its carriers, a weapons system that may already be redundant which America has been very reluctant for some time to let anywhere near China (Straits Aversion, in comparison China sent one of it’s own carrier groups through the channel just last week).
The analysis concludes noting that discussion about the ‘balance of regional power’ is no longer appropriate. China now has that advantage.
In a contest in the region though China would probably be pitched against a U.S. force plus a broad coalition which makes calculation of who could prevail based on access to materiel ever more complicated. A fact no doubt planners on both sides are aware of and which, hopefully, makes conflict something no side will be keen to embark on too hastily.
You can access the article via this link China/U.S Naval Balance.
Happy Sunday.