Defense News – So frequent are the Chinese aircraft carrier CNS Liaoning’s publicly visible voyages that military analysts presume that the People’s Liberation Army Navy has fixed a routine that will let the relatively aged carrier help train and equip the fleet’s two more modern ones.

China Maritime Studies Institute – Led by the political commissar with the commanding officer serving as deputy, party committees are responsible for major decision-making, maintaining party control, training, and general leadership aboard People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) submarines. While Chinese sources extoll this collective leadership model, it is unclear how this command structure influences decision-making efficacy in practice.

Defense News – China built more than twice the naval tonnage of the United States in the 2024-25 period, narrowing the gap between the two countries’ navies, according to the World Defense Shipbuilding report published by Euronaval ahead of the 2026 edition of the naval defense show.

China Maritime Studies Institute – While construction of the Type 039A submarine was underway, the Chinese Navy, guided by anticipated technological developments in future conventional submarines, its own operational requirements, and the potential threats it faced, initiated research/development and improvement efforts for a new generation of submarine technologies. By around 2010, several key technologies and systems required for these new submarines had achieved breakthroughs or completed development, clearing the obstacles for commencing construction of the new Type 039B. At the same time, this marked the beginning of the large‑scale production of the Chinese Navy’s core conventional submarine force for the 2020s.

Covert Shores – Better images have emerged of a new Chinese Navy (uncrewed surface vessel. The new type was first observed in Chinese social media reports in August last year. The type is known to be related to mine hunting.

CIMSEC – This article will analyze these unconventional methods, focusing centrally on China’s evolving systems and strategies, while also drawing parallels to other unconventional strategies of other nations. That said, this article is centrally focused on Chinese maritime strategy evolution and its ramifications. These tools, by examining an undercurrent of strategy applied to different facets of the undersea domain, establish an argument on Beijing’s military-civil infrastructure, through research vessels, cargo fleets, fishing boats, and autonomous drones. In such a way, this infrastructure operates without acting as a clear and present threat or exigency for war; rather, it functions simply as an inconvenience or mild concern, one which becomes increasingly threatening, despite not acting as an obviously military entity

RUSI – Beijing claims a Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal was illegal, lacking approval from Beijing, China has shifted to treating this as space it administers.

Global Times – The Chinese PLA Navy sent the Liaoning carrier task group to the Western Pacific on Wednesday for training. This is the Liaoning’s second far-sea training deployment to the Western Pacific this year, which also marks the 10th anniversary of its first such deployment in late December 2016, after the carrier entered service. 

Military experts told the Global Times that the Liaoning’s decade of far-sea operations tells the story of its transformation from a “coastal pathfinder” to a “far-sea blade,” and mirrors the Chinese Navy’s strategic shift from near-sea defense to far-sea defense.

China Maritime Studies Institute – In recent years, the PLA has employed a new concept—“preclusion” (shezu)—that captures the two related missions of deterring and denying U.S. military intervention in a Taiwan conflict.

In Chinese military strategy, “preclusion” would seek to combine defensive operations on “interior lines” and offensive operations on “exterior lines.” The former would rely on shore based cruise and ballistic missiles “to use the land to control the sea,” while the latter would favor long-range air and naval operations to envelop the approaching enemy.

The “preclusion” concept is essential to PLA thinking on “cognitive warfare,” which seeks, among other aims, to deprive the adversary of the will to intervene on Taiwan’s behalf.

Precluding U.S. military intervention in a Taiwan conflict is an apparent driver of the PLA Navy’s development and employment of carrier strike groups. It is the core focus of PLA Air Force training and operations beyond the First Island Chain.

China Maritime Studies Institute – The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operates a pervasive system of discipline inspection commissions (DICs) spanning the Party and military hierarchy to enforce political discipline and loyalty…The activities of the PLAN DIC and its subordinate DICs may have resulted in a higher degree of professionalism among PLAN personnel, although the magnitude of the change is not clear based on publicly available information. For the PLAN, as well as the rest of the PLA, political loyalty in contemporary China means personal control by and loyalty to Xi Jinping himself.

USNI News – Chinese forces rehearsed enforcing Beijing’s claim to Scarborough Shoal with drones and boarding drills on Sunday amid state media claims that China has extended its control of several contested maritime features beyond 24 nautical miles.

The War Zone – Recent satellite imagery shows a host of highly specialized features on the ship that’s under construction, as well as a large cradle sitting beside it.

USNI News – Chinese warships and cutters blocked a Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal on Thursday in the most significant development at the disputed South China Sea feature. 

CIMSEC – Ships can deter a competitor, compel a rival, and escort a convoy. What they cannot do is build the institutions, relationships, information systems, and rules that keep maritime order running when the guns are silent. China has worked this out. Washington and most of its partners treat governance as an appendage to naval strategy, rather than a domain of competition in its own right.

The War Zone – A Chinese submarine now taking shape at Bohai Shipyard has a number of significant features and offers new insights into China’s undersea ambitions.

War on the Rocks – All states should come to terms with the fact that China’s survey operations east of Taiwan are either a prelude to war or to the slow strangulation of Taiwan’s separate status. China’s fleet of civilian vessels is, in essence, military assets at Beijing’s beck and call, and China increasingly uses its civilian fleet for military purposes, such as containerized missiles and amphibious lift. All states with an interest in peace and stability in East Asia have an interest in deterring China from using its research vessels to engage in military activities such as underwater sabotage, installing or employing fixed undersea sensors, or perhaps prepositioning sea mines. In fact, this applies globally. Beyond East Asia, China’s fleet of research vessels enables Beijing to conduct activities supporting military operations and political objectives anywhere in the world. Unless states recognize and respond to the political, legal, and military impact of their operations, Taiwan’s challenge today may be another country’s tomorrow.

Covert Shores – Hiding behind signs warning onlookers not to take photographs, a previously unreported stealth boat has been seen in at least two Chinese ports. The vessel has been in the water for some time but had evaded the attention of onlookers, until now.

Covert Shores – China is building a new form of drone mothership, one large enough and specially shaped and equipped, to carry drone submarines. The vessel is under construction at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai.

CIMSEC – The evolution of the PLAN’s maritime medical platforms from the 1970s to the present day is a study in implementing a methodical and deliberate modernization strategy. From the complete absence of dedicated maritime medical capabilities in the Battle of the Paracels, the PLAN’s trajectory has taken it to makeshift adaptations in the 1990s and early 2000s, to a robust, layered network of twelve dedicated vessels today. This fleet looks set to be increasingly augmented by a growing PRC-built civilian capability, providing a blueprint for scaling up platforms as required . This diverse ecosystem provides the PLAN with a dependable maritime medical capacity for routine operations in the South China Sea; a dedicated capability to rapidly service large numbers of casualties in the event of a regional contingency close to the mainland (such as a Taiwan conflict scenario), as well as support PLAN ambitions to project maritime power around the world in the coming years.

US Naval War College Review – As the People’s Republic of China continues to amass military forces across the strait from Taiwan, Chinese military doctrine holds the keys to preparing for potential conflict. Elements of surprise and deception, akin to those used by Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, may drive strategy and preparation for a potential invasion of Taiwan.

The War Zone – Chinese state-run shipping company COSCO has been using concealed systems on its vessels to gather signals intelligence around North American, European, and Asian coastlines for decades, it has been alleged.

China Maritime Studies Institute – Intelligent Tools for Designing Operational Concepts: Intelligent Agents Innovating Mechanisms for Victory