The War Zone – The J-15DT electronic attack jet is optimized for new catapult-equipped aircraft carriers, but may well also embark on older Chinese flattops.

Naval News – Multiple programs for equipping present and future Chinese aircraft carriers reached significant milestones this year, including launches from new supercarrier Fujian.

The War Zone – Launching jets in an operational manner would be a critical milestone for China’s first catapult-equipped aircraft carrier.

War on the Rocks – During a June 17 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Steve Koehler declared that despite an ongoing campaign of intimidation against its smaller neighbors in the South China Sea, “China’s pressure is not working well. It has failed to intimidate Southeast Asian claimants and make them surrender their sovereign rights.”

The War Zone – There are signs that the J-35 has now entered limited series production, with carrier trials the likely next step.

China Maritime Studies Institute – People’s Republic of China (PRC) law enforcement operations function as forms of cognitive and legal warfare. They represent a clear effort to undermine international maritime law as well as Taiwan’s sovereignty.

China Maritime Studies Institute – With expectations, dreams, and curiosity, in mid-June the new sailors who had enlisted this spring joined their companies. Saying goodbye to boot camp and moving to new posts, some new sailors experienced “acclimatization issues” in the unfamiliar environment. How can we help new comrades smoothly get through the “second adjustment period”? Each unit must carefully monitor the characteristics of the new sailors in addition to guiding and educating them. This issue’s “Pathways of Youth” special edition brings you the stories and experiences of naval units as they work to effectively manage the integration of new sailors into their companies.

The War Zone – The incident is the latest in which a Chinese naval vessel has been accused of firing a laser at a Western military aircraft.

The War Zone – The first full image of China’s “Bohai Sea Monster” wing-in-ground effect craft has emerged, but major questions remain.

China Maritime Studies Institute – VADM Li Hanjun was a fast-rising star, terminated before he could make his full contribution and career achievements:

Naval News – Ekranoplans, special ultra-low flying aircraft, promise to combine features from ships, airplanes, and hovercraft. There are many designs and projects out there, but they have yet to truly realise their promise. Now the discovery of the large 4-jet ‘Bohai Sea Monster’ in China harks back to the mysterious Soviet projects of the Cold War.

CIMSEC – Writing in the November 2023 issue of Military Art (军事学术), a prestigious journal published by the Chinese Academy of Military Science, three PLAN officers revealed that the peacetime operations of Chinese submarines are highly vulnerable to the U.S. Navy’s undersea surveillance system, raising serious questions about their strategic and operational utility.

US Naval War College Review – The PLA Navy will play a key role in any flash points and conflicts in the western Pacific. This study of professional military education for senior PLA Navy officers supplements analyses of platforms and capabilities with a look at how senior navy commanders are prepared to lead in combat.

US Naval War College Review – China’s rise as a major maritime and naval power in recent decades resulted from a deliberate policy choice, but that choice was not an uncontroversial one. Internal Chinese Communist Party debate about naval power was resolved by balancing entrenched continental interests, resulting in an integrated but possibly compromised policy approach.

China Maritime Studies Institute – Since mid-November 2023 to the present Houthi armed forces in Yemen have continued to hijack and attack vessels in the Red Sea that “use Israeli ports” or “engage in trade with Israel” to oppose Israel’s military operations in Gaza and disrupt military assistance to Israel from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries. As of April 1, 2024, over 86 vessels related to the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and other countries have been attacked. The Houthis continue to maintain control over the Red Sea, forcing vessels from these countries to risk damage and loss of life while navigating through the area. The crisis in the Red Sea is worsening.

RUSI – The China-Cook Island’s Comprehensive Strategic Partnership draws the island nation into a rising competition in the pacific between great powers.

The War Zone – The presence of Chinese carrier strike groups farther east than ever before is a taste of what’s to come as the PLAN’s reach expands.

National Interest – James Holmes says that leaving the port of Darwin in Chinese hands would bestow on Beijing a golden opportunity to make mischief for Australia and its allies.

China Maritime Studies Institute – Xi Jinping has played a direct and active role in China’s naval buildup. He is China’s first great navalist statesman, the world’s greatest navalist leader today, and among the world’s greatest navalist statesmen in modern history.

Notwithstanding major advances in ships, submarines, aircraft, and other hardware, Chinese military leaders believe that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) continues to lag behind in human factors.

Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the PLAN has dismissed (or is rumored to have dismissed) eleven flag officers. Beyond combating outright dysfunction, these removals are intended to prevent potential disloyalty and factionalism, centralize power, and further modernization and warfighting goals.

These high-profile dismissals have had no apparent impact on PLAN operational capabilities, which continue to improve at a remarkable rate. From the Taiwan Strait to the “distant oceans” (远洋), the service is present daily and visible internationally, particularly its surface fleet, indicating reliability, trust, and growing responsibilities and capabilities.

Since 2008, the PLAN’s surface fleet has almost doubled. Despite being projected to exceed 400 ships by the end of 2025, China’s Navy continues to successfully crew, operate, and train with them.

China’s Navy draws on a massive, sufficiently-capable talent pool and education system. Provincial-level compulsory conscription quotas avoid individual compellence thanks to high levels of volunteerism.

Given the demands of increasingly frequent and intense training and missions—often with the austere privations of submarines or remote installations—mental health support is increasingly prioritized. Nevertheless, it remains a weakness for China’s Navy, which views U.S. care as the gold standard yet has treated counseling as a “political” issue.

China’s Naval Command College in Nanjing—the Naval War College’s closest equivalent—educates its students differently from its counterpart in Newport by focusing on naval operations and warfighting for top-priority scenarios.

The PLAN enjoys unique human capital advantages: educational partnerships as early as elementary school; personal data compiled centrally, available and utilizable without privacy restriction; eldercare benefits; and warfighting-focused naval education.

PLAN sources perceive weaknesses in lack of talent for new-domain operations and advanced S&T given rising demand in these burgeoning areas; recruitment and training pipeline supply-demand imbalance and talent-skills mismatches; officers’ overly narrow early-career experience and subsequent aging out of cutting-edge relevance; and youths’ declining commitment to the Communist system.

Despite being an improvement on its Soviet progenitor, China’s Political Commissar system could represent a critical weakness, causing real-time decision-making bottlenecks or distraction, particularly in crisis or conflict.

Global Times – China’s domestically built 10,000-ton-class hospital ship, the Auspicious Ark, conducted a multi-element, full-process medical rescue drill in a certain area of the Yellow Sea recently, the official Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) media reported on Monday. An expert told the Global Times that this indicates the new ship has been commissioned into the navy of the PLA Northern Theater Command, completing the strategic deployment of hospital ships across the PLA’s Eastern, Southern and Northern theater commands.

War on the Rocks – Has Beijing found a new “assassin’s mace” to keep the U.S. military out of a fight over Taiwan?

China Maritime Studies Institute – A quick summary of this conference held earlier this month.

China Maritime Studies Institute – The sky is high, the lake is vast, and ghosts are lurking.