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The sheer number. 2 ships about as good as "Kidds", which we retired a couple decades ago. 4 ships about as good as "Perrys". 4 more Kidd-quality ships building. No aircraft carriers. Not covered in the article, a couple of fairly modern electric SS, and about 4 more building. About 100 modern combat aircraft, plans to import or build a few hundred more. Overall, 10-20 reasonably modern major combatants, with a total SAM count in the mid hundreds.

Meanwhile we've got 50 attack submarines so quiet the Russians can't hear them. 100 surface combatants equal to or better than the best they have, some with 4 times the firepower each. If every SAM in their navy hit an incoming US missile, they'd stop less than 5% of one salvo. Then we have with 1000 naval aircraft on a dozen supercarriers. Several thousand land based tactical aircraft. A hundred assorted conventional bombers with (alone) more missle firepower than their entire armed forces. Not to mention a dozen Tridents each of which can turn the entire country into a smoking irradiated ruin in less than half an hour.

The Chinese have the intention to build a real navy, one that can challenge us in the Taiwan strait. But they are just begining to enter the naval power sphere. Their navy is weaker than Indias. So is their air force. Japan's is better by a large factor. And none of those is even in our weight class. Only Russia's is, and only on paper because it is not really operational.

At one point in the article, speaking of carriers, it says the Chinese have "traditionally" relied on land based aircraft for strike against naval targets. This is a euphemism for not having any carriers. The reality is the Chinese air force has never conducted a land based strike against a major naval surface combatant. They've never hit any target that wasn't absolutely stationary. They've never shown they could even find one, in actual combat.

They are beyond green. Comparison with 1930s Japan, which waged a successful war against China for years, involving large scale use of modern airpower, before messing with us, is fanciful at best.

Are they trying to be a threat? Certainly. Is the sort of navy they are building one that Taiwan would have to worry about, 10-20 years from now, if the US didn't come help them? Yes. Is the sort of navy they are building, even as it will be in 20 years, the sort that could beat the USN, or even last 3 months against us? Not remotely.

In terms of pure weapons systems and capabilities outside of area SAM defense, the Sovremennys are as good as or better than the Kidds. The new Type 052b's are better than Kidds and the Type 052c will be on par with Burkes. They are building the latter two classses at a rate of two ships a go.

They are also rapidly building a new class of SSN that is approximately the equivalent of a Victor III. not on Par with the Improved LA's or the Seawolf or Virginia's, but in the confines of the Formosa Strait os South China Sea...a threat nonetheless.

Clearly, our training and experience means that the actual use of the vessels will be no contest for the near future. And I point this out in the whole article, which you would have to click on the link to see the rest that includes that part.

The point is, the Chinese are involved in an unprecedented arms buildup. They are building multiple new, modern combatant classes and they are doing it using our trade dollars. They are going to be looking at extending power in their region, perhaps out to the 1st island chain, so their ioverall quantity and (backed up by land air) their quality does not have to be as good.

Anyhow, to negate them as nothing is a mistake. They are building these vessels to project power and their power projection will ultimately conflict with ours.

They are nowhere near a point of challenging our CBG's and AEGIS and SSN's...but they are clearly working on it. It is likely that they would have to have to depend on significant asymetrical warfare capabilities that we are unaware of for them to challeneg a CBG of ours...but they themselves have indicated that this is their aim and goal and they are clearly working towards it. That's the point of the article.

Pretty correct. China will follow a path of using economic and military muscle, but it won't be a brash kinda dumb bully like the Soviet union. The chinese are perfectly willing to wait a few generations and slowly move forward. Militarily they may not be a threat for a few decades. H***, in terms of naval power, we can take on the entire world -- we've got 13 aircraft carrier groups, the rest of the world has what, 12? And mostly aging, tiny fleets. China is a land power primarily and has always been. In terms of naval power, the Indians won't let them into the Indian Ocean which they consider to be theirsphere of influence while the Australians consider the Asian side of the Pacific to be their own playground. The North-western pacific is Japanese-American.

The Chinese navy is only good enough for sabre-rattling against Taiwan, though by the end of the decade it may be strong enough to invade Taiwan. China may never be a significant naval power, but remember that the Romans didn't have much of a navy compared to Carthage either so the Romans used their army pwoer -- tossing bridges from deck to deck and then sending troops across to do what Romans did best -- hand to hand combat.