David Axe, National Interest: U.S. Navy Nightmare: The Chinese Fleet Doesn't Have 300 Ships, It Has 650
You have to count the Chinese coast guard and maritime militia.
The Chinese fleet is much bigger than most people think. And that should compel the United States to reconsider its Pacific maritime strategy, one expert argued.
The People's Liberation Army Navy by 2020 will possess between 313 and 342 warships, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence estimated.
By comparison, in mid-2018 the U.S. Navy possessed 285 warships.
But the PLAN accounts for only a fraction of China's maritime power, according to Andrew Erickson, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College.
"China’s armed forces comprise three major organizations, each with a maritime subcomponent that is already the world’s largest such sea force by number of ships," Erickson wrote in Indo-Pacific Defense Forum .
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WNU Editor: What should concern everyone is not the fact that the Chinese have a naval force of about 650 ships, but that China is determined and committed to building better and more ships in the future.
