Global Times – A Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy expedition group led by a Type 052D destroyer recently crossed the equator as it sailed further into the open sea, and such missions enable the PLA to get familiar with the high seas as China eyes to build a blue-water navy.

USNI News – The following is a translation of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies assessment of the recently released U.S. maritime strategy, Advantage at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power.

China Maritime Studies Institute – This report traces the origins and development of China’s current naval strategy: “Near Seas Defense and Far Seas Protection.” Near Seas Defense is a regional, defensive concept concerned with ensuring China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests. Its primary focus is preparing to fight and win informatized local wars within the first island chain. Far Seas Protection has both peacetime and wartime elements. In peacetime, the Chinese navy is expected to conduct a range of “non-war military operations” such as participating in international peacekeeping, providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, evacuating Chinese citizens from danger, and engaging in joint exercises and naval diplomacy. In wartime, the PLAN could be tasked with securing China’s use of strategic sea lanes and striking important nodes and high-value targets in the enemy’s strategic depth. Nears Seas Defense and Far Seas Protection is rooted in the ideas of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Mao Zedong.

The Diplomat – A look at the jet with many names – and its carrier-based future.

Global Times – The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy recently commissioned its last batch of Type 056A corvettes specialized in coastal defense, with the total number of the Type 056 series reaching 72, as analysts predicted on Wednesday that China could then shift focus to produce more larger warships as part of the country’s aim to build a blue-water navy.

Global Times – A Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy flotilla led by a Type 052D destroyer on Thursday started participating in a multinational exercise in Pakistan, a unique platform experts said that provides opportunities for Chinese and Russian navies to come together with their counterparts from the US and other Western countries.

Naval News – New intelligence confirms that China has ramped up submarine construction at a new site near the city of Wuhan. The Type-039A Yuan class submarines are replacing older types in the Chinese Navy’s (PLAN) order of battle. Together with new nuclear powered submarines they are helping to transform the PLAN into a much more modern and capable navy.

Global Times – The Gwadar Port is a commercial port that may receive port calls by ships of different navies, said Admiral M Amjad Khan Niazi, Chief of the Naval Staff of the Pakistan Navy, in a recent exclusive interview with the Global Times, in response to media reports claiming the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is mulling to build a naval base in Pakistan.

Global Times – Increasing attention on soldiers’ mental health is a normal management work of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China to thoroughly improve combat effectiveness as mental health is an important part of military management for all countries, Chinese observers said amid overseas media’s over-interpretation of a recent report on the mental condition of PLA submarine soldiers in the South China Sea.

Naval News – Open Source Intelligence reveals what appears to be the first publicly available image of China’s new nuclear powered submarine.

War Zone – The U.S. Navy is strongly hinting that it feels it is well on its way to mitigating the very real threats posed by anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles.

USNI News – China can continue spending money on anti-ship ballistic missiles, but it might not be the capability needed to win if a conflict broke out between the U.S. and China, the admiral overseeing Navy intelligence said Wednesday.

South China Morning Post – China has risked stoking tensions with its neighbours after it passed a law that for the first time explicitly allows its coastguards to fire on foreign vessels and demolish structures built in disputed waters.

South China Morning Post – China has deployed a large number of launchers for its new advanced intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) to the country’s eastern and western areas for intensive training, as it and the United States continue their posturing over the disputed South China Sea.

USNI News – A major weakness “the largest navy in the world” has yet to solve is where Beijing will find skilled shipyard workers and modern facilities to maintain its fleet’s combat readiness far from its shores.

Naval News – Chinese government ships have been carrying out a systematic survey in the eastern Indian ocean. Data gathered may be particularly relevant to submarine warfare.

Global Times – China’s third aircraft carrier, expected to be very different from the previous two with much larger displacement and featuring electromagnetic catapults, could be launched in 2021 and enter naval service around 2025, media reports predicted based on recent photos of the ship’s construction site.

USNI News – A Chinese government survey ship was intercepted “running dark” without broadcasting its position via AIS (Automated Information System by Indonesian officials. The incident is latest twist in an ongoing maritime saga which has also seen Chinese uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) found in Indonesia’s territorial waters.

RUSI – China’s apparent efforts to survey within other country’s territorial waters may go unchallenged.

South China Morning Post – Dozens of destroyers and frigates are thought to be in the works but it will take more than hardware to make the plan work, observers say.

War Zone – A new, much clearer picture has emerged of a Chinese Z-20F helicopter, the navalized variant of the Harbin Z-20, carrying what appears to be a load of eight live KD-10 air-to-ground/surface missiles.

CIMSEC – In this study, Senior Fellow Toshi Yoshihara and Research Fellow Jack Bianchi argue that a deep study of China’s weaknesses as they relate to its worldwide ambitions is required to formulate an effective allied response. These weaknesses offer insights into the costs that Beijing will have to pay to go global. Importantly, the United States and its close allies enjoy agency over certain Chinese weaknesses, furnishing them leverage that, if exercised, could yield strategic dividends. The report concludes with a range of allied options that exploit China’s weaknesses to constrain and complicate the PLA’s global expansion.  

South China Morning Post – Beijing has ramped up its military and coastguard presence near the islands to get Tokyo to acquiesce on the disputed chain, analysts say

Global Times – China’s major manufacturer of amphibious assault ships, amphibious landing ships and frigates on Monday started constructing an advanced new shipyard in Shanghai, a move analysts said on Tuesday would boost China’s technical level and efficiency in building such vessels.

China Maritime Studies Institute – China established Sansha City in 2012 to administer the bulk of its territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea. Sansha is headquartered on Woody Island. The city’s jurisdiction includes the Paracel Islands, Zhongsha Islands, and Spratly Islands and most of the waters within China’s “ninedash line.” Sansha is responsible for exercising administrative control, implementing military-civil fusion, and carrying out the day-to-day work of rights defense, stability maintenance, environmental protection, and resource development. Since 2012, each level of the Chinese party-state system has worked to develop Sansha, improving the city’s physical infrastructure and transportation, communications, corporate ecosystem, party-state institutions, and rights defense system. In effect, the city’s development has produced a system of normalized administrative control. This system ultimately allows China to govern contested areas of the South China Sea as if they were Chinese territory.