September 2, 2024: 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 the military. Xi has openly complained about corruption, poor work habits and lack of discipline. Xi ordered a purge of military personnel 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.

For over a year now there have been multiple purges of corrupt officials, including nine generals and four senior aerospace 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 expects the Chinese fleet to be the world’s largest modern force by 2050. Such a navy built by corrupt shipyard officials and commanded by corrupt admirals will be 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, but less immediately serious, 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 equally large navy is used to threaten the 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 and other nations in the region and worldwide fear this Chinese misbehavior will spread.