The United States is floundering in China’s wake when it comes to maritime power, but the tide may soon turn.
China announced the commissioning of a new People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) frigate that “will play a vital role in enhancing the overall combat effectiveness” of its forces, it boasted through its official state news agency on Wednesday. News of the addition to China’s navy comes hot on the heels of a United States Trade Representative (USTR) report that found that Beijing has boosted its shipbuilding, maritime and logistics sectors through unfair practices and policies and called for “urgent action” to counter it.
China’s new frigate is the latest ship in a naval fleet that now outnumbers our own. However, perhaps more alarming is the pace at which China is producing these ships. China was expected to grow its fleet from 355 warships in 2021 to 400 ships in 2025. It’s important to note that this sea power is linked to China’s commercial shipbuilding capacity.
For nearly three decades, China has thrown its shipyards into overdrive, producing a huge overcapacity in the global market that has forced U.S. shipyards into closure, eliminated tens of thousands of valuable community-supporting jobs, and burdened our nation’s economy. And China isn’t losing any steam as the years go on. Its industrial targets “have become more aggressive and sophisticated over the years,” the USTR report states.
Beijing initially aimed to control 20% of the global market share for its high-technology ships by 2011, but its current goal is to achieve 50% global market share by 2025, according to the USTR. Similarly, China initially targeted 10% global market share for maritime engineering equipment by 2011, but now pursues 40% market share by 2025.
China’s shipbuilding dominance is a clear threat to American workers and our economic success, but it also threatens our national security. In strengthening its commercial shipyards, Beijing significantly enhances its ability to produce more vessels and higher-tech vessels for its navy, a key tenet of China’s Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) strategy.
In decades past, U.S. leadership in the global shipbuilding market played a deciding factor in WWII, with commercial shipyards’ capacity supporting the military effort. “The United States had 8 naval shipyards and at least 64 private-sector shipyards that were actively building large naval or merchant ships,” the Center for Naval Analyses Institute for Public Research (CNA) wrote in a 2002 report. “Of the 64 private-sector yards, 24 had been major shipbuilders before the war, 20 had been established or expanded by the Navy for the naval shipbuilding program, and 20 had been established or expanded by the U.S. Maritime Commission for the merchant shipbuilding program.”
The USTR’s investigation is an important step forward in pushing back against China’s market manipulation in the shipbuilding sector, and more and more of the U.S. government is joining in that action. In December, Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Reps. John John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) introduced the SHIPS Act, which would create a 25% investment tax credit for shipyard investments and establish a national goal of expanding the U.S.-flag international fleet by 250 ships in 10 years.
The Congressional Labor Caucus has also worked to support U.S. shipbuilding revitalization in urging the Biden administration to protect American workers from China’s market manipulations in the critical sector, calling for “bold action” to not only “create good not only to create good-paying jobs but also to bolster our national security and supply chains.”
It’s now up to the Trump administration to respond to the growing threat that China’s shipbuilding dominance poses to our economy and security.