Naval News – Super-sized hovercraft provide a rare and specialized capability that only a handful of navies can afford. China is the only nation investing in these massive platforms, pursuing series production of the Zubr-class vessels for amphibious assault operations. These offer key operational advantages and may signal a growing level of preparedness for a potential invasion of Taiwan.

CIMSEC – The international order has come under immense strain in recent years. Major wars have erupted between the great powers in Ukraine and the Middle East. The U.S.’s top geopolitical rivals have increasingly coalesced, with China and Russia both rapidly modernizing and expanding their arsenals of strategic weapons. Meanwhile, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan looms, possibly backed by Moscow. The current challenges make China’s years-old claims to the entirety of the South China Sea seem quaint and insignificant in comparison.

Hunter Stires, who served as the Maritime Strategist to the Secretary of the Navy during the tenure of Secretary Carlos Del Toro, views each of these challenges as interconnected parts of a global struggle for the Freedom of the Sea and the international order, with the central front in the South China Sea. Stires believes the future of global order rests on the extent to which China succeeds in claiming ownership to one of the world’s most important waterways and disrupting the centuries-old concept of the freedom of the seas upon which the modern global order was founded. Stires helped found the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Counterinsurgency (COIN) Project to better conceptualize and combat China’s battle to overturn the international order at sea. This interview captures Stires’ thoughts on the history of the Maritime COIN project and its ongoing relevance for intensifying strategic competition between the US and China.

Naval News – In the high-stakes world of submarine acquisition, true performance-first designs are exceedingly rare. The immense cost involved almost always forces trade-offs, shaping vessels around budget, strategy, and industrial constraints as much as pure capability. Until now the U.S. Navy’s Seawolf-class stood as the benchmark of an uncompromising approach to undersea warfare. Now, it appears that China’s latest nuclear-powered attack submarine, the Type 095 (also known as Type 09V), is built with a similarly ambitious philosophy.

Defense News – China is conducting a vast undersea mapping and monitoring operation across the Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans, building detailed knowledge of marine conditions that naval experts say would be crucial for waging submarine warfare against the United States and its allies.

China Maritime Studies Institute – The concept of a maritime community with a shared destiny proposed by Chairman Xi is China’s wisdom and approach for maintaining global maritime peace, promoting ocean development, enhancing global maritime governance, and advancing maritime security cooperation. This should guide efforts to tailor security cooperation relationships based on different targets. We need to broaden our thinking and innovate mechanisms for maritime security cooperation, take proactive steps to provide maritime public security goods, strengthen coordinated implementation of external maritime military assistance, and promote the creation of a new landscape in maritime military security cooperation.

Andrew Erickson – Andrew S. Erickson, Statement for the Record for Hearing on “Part of Your World: U.S.-China Competition Under the Sea,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Washington, DC, 2 March 2026.

USNI News – Washington has determined that China does not plan to invade Taiwan in 2027, according to the U.S. intelligence community’s 2026 Annual Threat Assessment report published this week.

USNI News – Beijing’s naval forces received two new Type 055-class guided missile destroyers and have tasked them to operate under the command responsible for any potential operation against Taiwan, according to recent Chinese state media reports.

Center for Maritime Strategy – “Ports of Power” chronicles China’s meteoric
rise in the maritime domain over the last two decades. The study presents a cautionary tale of how a rising power that once yielded to American sea power is now able to flex its muscles outside the first and second island chains while simultaneously expanding its global reach. Unlike many other studies written on this topic, “Ports of Power” is not content to simply identify and admire the problem. Rather, this study o!ers solutions to mitigate the risk of a Chinese monopoly in maritime infrastructure around the world and a strategy to compete with Beijing in this domain.

Naval News – The Chinese Navy has taken into service two additional Type 903-series fleet replenishment oilers. Imagery circulating on social media service “X”, former Twitter, two weeks ago shows the two auxiliaries, also denoted as AOR, wearing their hull numbers, docked at a PLAN naval base. The Chinese Navy assigned pennant numbers 892 and 893 to the new oilers.

China Maritime Studies Institute – On 5 November 2025, the aircraft carrier Fujian (福建舰) was commissioned into People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy (PLAN) service. One man was notably absent on this auspicious day—the PLAN Commander himself, Admiral (ADM) Hu Zhongming (胡中明), the leader CMSI profiled in CMSI Note 1.5 Instead, Vice Admiral (VADM) Cui Yuzhong (崔玉忠) was one of the PLAN’s senior representatives attending the ceremony. Cui’s high-profile appearance on the PLAN’s red-letter day may portend that Cui is slated to assume the highest PLAN billet.

Naval News – A photo circulating on social media service “X” (formerly Twitter) last week serves as an indication that the Chinese Navy (PLAN) is moving ahead with development of a new large naval gun for surface combatants. The photo shows one of PLAN’s Type 910 test and evaluation vessels docked at Liaonan shipyard south of Dalian in Liaoning province.

China Maritime Studies Institute – China’s merchant marine is a foundational economic and national security asset, supporting the country’s multi-decade growth and modernization and military logistics. Thus, Beijing views seafarers as a strategic resource and has prioritized development initiatives to strengthen the quality and quantity of the nation’s professional merchant marine.

China Maritime Studies Institute – In February 2025, a distant-ocean task force led by Chinese Navy Type 055 destroyer Zunyi made its first appearance in Australia’s near seas, conducting live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea. This action not only set a record for the Chinese Navy’s activities in the waters surrounding Australia, but also attracted widespread international attention due to its overwhelming technological superiority and strategic deterrence. This article will analyze the deeper significance of this action from the perspectives of task force composition, deployment process, technical performance, and geopolitical impact.

Breaking Defense – China has rapidly expanded its nuclear-powered submarine fleet in recent years, and has now surpassed US sub production rate.

The War Zone – A new 155mm gun could give Chinese warships added firepower for amphibious operations, as well as against targets at sea or even in the air.

Naval News – China’s large fleet of air-independent propulsion (AIP) submarines is set to become significantly more lethal. The introduction of the next-generation YJ-19 hypersonic missile dramatically elevates their already serious anti-ship punch. China is currently the only nation known to have armed non-nuclear submarines with hypersonic strike weapons.

Chinese Maritime Studies Institute – At the close of 2024, the first of China’s next-generation Type 076 amphibious assault ships was launched at Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai. Named the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Sichuan with hull number 51, this milestone concluded the PLAN’s major combat equipment development for the year.

China’s navy only began to develop and construct modern amphibious assault ships around 2017. While the first generation of Type 075 ships (an initial batch of four vessels) was still being rapidly constructed, work commenced on the second-generation Type 076 in less than six years. This demonstrated the Chinese navy’s urgent need for large-scale amphibious operations equipment and the high priority placed on it. More significantly, compared to the Type 075, the Type 076 represents a qualitative leap in design concepts, technological sophistication, combat capabilities, and mission functionality. It will serve as a crucial component of the Chinese navy’s future long-range strike and deterrence capabilities.

Naval News – Submarine yard Bohai Shipbuilding earlier this week moved the first Chinese Type 09V (or 095) nuclear powered attack submarine (SSN) into the launch bay at the yards facilities in Huludao. Naval News has received a number of detailed satellite photos showing the new design in the flooded drydock.

USNI News – The mainstay of Chinese carrier air wings was seen with a new anti-ship missile potentially capable of striking targets more than 1,000 kilometers away at supersonic speeds.

War on the Rocks – China’s recent actions point toward a theory of success that does not rely on decisive battle or territorial conquest, but on sustained pressure, ambiguity, and delay. Rather than seeking victory through destruction, Beijing appears increasingly focused on achieving political outcomes through paralysis: exhausting decision-making processes, fracturing alliances, and reshaping perceptions of risk and inevitability. This approach does not reject deterrence theory. It exploits its blind spots.

CIMSEC – The ongoing coercion by the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) aims to erode the ROC’s sovereignty by sending a message to the international community that the CCP has both the capability and the will to exert control over the waters near Taiwan, but this activity also threatens the United States’ national security interests.

Breaking Defense – Dean Cheng writes that the Chinese PLA has gone through wide-scale restructuring in recent years, leading to questions as to why and what the effects may be.

The Space Review – In the fall of 2025, China commissioned its first indigenously-designed and built aircraft carrier, Fujian, named after a Chinese province. The commissioning ceremony was photographed from overhead by Western commercial reconnaissance satellites, but of course China proudly released their own photographs of the ceremony. The conventionally powered aircraft carrier is large and impressive. Although not quite as big as the US Navy’s Nimitz-class or Ford-class carriers, Fujian sports modern equipment, such as electromagnetic catapults and arresting gear.

But even as Fujian was formally entering service after an extended period of sea trials, another large carrier was taking shape in China. It too has been photographed by commercial reconnaissance satellites, and Western amateur analysts have been keeping tabs on the progress, trying to assess its size and capabilities. They soon saw indications that this ship, unlike its predecessors, will be nuclear-powered. Satellites are a primary source of information on China’s latest naval developments.

China Maritime Studies Institute – Today, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) owns the world’s largest fleet of blue-water marine scientific research vessels. While their operations are largely concentrated in the Western Pacific, an increasing number are reaching across the globe—from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic, and even the Western Hemisphere.