China launches ‘Asia’s biggest, most advanced’ warship

BEIJING — China launched what it calls the most advanced and largest warship in Asia yesterday, billing it as a major step forward in the modernisation of its navy, said the official military newspaper.

The first of the new Type 055 guided-missile destroyers, which has a displacement of about 10,000 tonnes and was built at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, is equipped with air-defence, anti-missile, anti-ship, and anti-submarine weapons, reported the People’s Liberation Army Daily.

“The launch of this ship signifies that our nation’s development of destroyers has reached a new stage,” said the navy in a press release. Official news agency Xinhua described the Type 055 as China’s “new generation” destroyer.

It is significantly larger than China’s other modern destroyer, the 7500-ton Type 052, representing the rising sophistication of Beijing’s defence industries. In terms of displacement, the Type 055 is roughly equivalent to the mainstay of the United States Navy — the 8,000-10,000-ton Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. The new ship will undergo equipment and sea testing, and is expected to enter service next year.

China’s navy is undergoing an ambitious expansion and is projected to have a total of 265-273 warships, submarines and logistics vessels by 2020, according to the Washington-based Centre for Naval Analysis.

That compares with 275 deployable vessels presently in the US Navy, China’s primary rival in the Asia-Pacific, although the once-yawning gap between the two is narrowing rapidly.

State media has said that the navy commissioned 18 ships, including destroyers, corvettes and guided-missile frigate last year.

In April, China launched its first domestically built aircraft carrier, a conventionally powered ship that is likely to enter active service in 2020.

Beijing says it needs a powerful navy to defend its 14,500km of coastline, as well as its crucial maritime shipping routes.

However, it also appears increasingly willing to challenge actions by the US — long the region’s pre-eminent military power — especially in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety.

China has also long nurtured resentment against Japan over its past invasion of China, and their dispute over a group of tiny, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea has at times threatened to break out into open confrontation.

India, meanwhile, also shares a disputed border with China and has grown increasingly concerned about the Chinese navy’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean, facilitated in part by Beijing’s close alliance with New Delhi’s arch rival, Pakistan. AGENCIES