China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has a lot of combatant ships, more in fact than the United States Navy, and that’s concerning. What they don’t have is much ability to project power; they lack at-sea replenishment capacity, and for the most part, their navy is a frigate navy. Nothing wrong with that, unless you’re going up against America’s carrier fleet.
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One way to project power, of course, is with nuclear-powered ships, especially nuclear-powered submarines. China has a few of those and was reportedly earlier in 2024 to be building the first in the new Zhou-class subs. But now we learn that the first boat in this class, while under construction at a shipyard near Wuhan (is there something in the air around Wuhan?) has sunk – alongside the pier.
How bad do you have to screw up to have your submarine sink?
China’s newest nuclear-powered attack submarine sank in the spring, a major setback for one of the country’s priority weapons programs, U.S. officials said.
The episode, which Chinese authorities scrambled to cover up and hasn’t previously been disclosed, occurred at a shipyard near Wuhan in late May or early June.
It comes as China has been pushing to expand its navy, including its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
The report continued in the WJS story (linked above):
The sub was built by China State Shipbuilding Corp., a state-owned company, and was observed alongside a pier on the Yangtze River in late May when it was undergoing its final equipping before going to sea.
After the sinking, large floating cranes arrived in early June to salvage the sub from the river bed, according to satellite photos of the site.
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The first public indication that something was amiss at the shipyard near Wuhan came in the summer when Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. submarine officer and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, wrote a series of social-media posts noting the unusual activity of the floating cranes, which was captured by commercial satellite imagery.
Shugart surmised that there might have been an incident that involved a new type of submarine, but he didn’t know at the time that it was nuclear-powered.
“Can you imagine a U.S. nuclear submarine sinking in San Diego and the government hushes it up and doesn’t tell anybody about it? I mean, Holy Cow!” Shugart said in an interview this week with The Wall Street Journal.
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Of course, the PLAN would try to cover up the fact that their brand-new, finest kind, first-in-class pride and joy sank alongside the pier! This is embarrassing for China, by which we mean the Chinese Communist Party under Chairman Xi. It’s also what old military folks know as a Charlie Foxtrot of the first order. Somebody’s head is probably on the chopping block for this, in fact, probably several someones. As a sailor, one can’t go much further wrong than having your new hot-stuff submarine sink at the pier.
Granted our own Navy has had some issues of late, but all of our guys in Navy uniform would be perfectly justified in pointing and laughing at this, and at China’s attempts to keep it quiet:
“The sinking of a new nuclear sub that was produced at a new yard will slow China’s plans to grow its nuclear submarine fleet,” said Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, and a retired U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer. “This is significant.”
Neither the People’s Liberation Army, as the Chinese military is known, nor local authorities, have acknowledged the episode.
This is known as belaboring the obvious. But, while this is a setback for China and an amusing one at that, it won’t set them back forever; much of their vaunted technology is stolen from other nations, and they have sure made plenty of attempts right here in the United States and will certainly continue to do so.
See Related: Another Chinese Spy Busted in the US; Former Aide to Cuomo, Hochul Indicted
ChiCom Spy, Who Was Former CIA Officer, Sold US Secrets for Cash… and Golf Clubs
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China is, to be sure, a nation with big ambitions. They want a big, ocean-spanning navy like a wolf wants a sheep, and they seem to be determined to get one. But they are going to have to step up their game. The country has been beset by quality problems in everything from shipbuilding to buildings to electric scooters, cars, and cell phones. Until they figure out their quality problems and learn to develop tech of their own that is on a par with Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the United States, we will continue to see incidents like this laughable failure of their vaunted new killer submarine – that sank alongside the pier.