After 20 years, the overall strength of the Chinese and Japanese navies has once again been compared, and how much progress the Chinese navy has made
Foreword: Since the beginning of the great navigation era in the 15th century, the process of world pattern integration has gradually accelerated, and the rudder that dominates the world has gradually changed from land control to sea control, and whoever controls the major trade routes of the sea can grasp a steady stream of wealth. In order to compete for control of this ocean, the game of military power on the sea has never stopped. Spain replaced Portugal, the Netherlands replaced Spain, Britain replaced the Netherlands, the United States replaced Britain, and for more than 500 years, the maritime hegemony was constantly changing, the war never ended, and the world pattern was profoundly affected by colonization and capital expansion. Behind the change of hegemony, the root cause is the decline and fall of naval power.
Therefore, in the past few hundred years, more and more countries have begun to pay attention to the development of naval military power and establish naval forces. Even a country like the former Soviet Union, which rose to power by land, with a Black Sea Fleet destined to be stuck in the neck, still spared no effort to develop naval power to compete with the United States. A landlocked country in Mongolia is required to symbolically establish a naval force. Behind the seemingly unrealistic and absurd, in the final analysis, is the desire of all countries in the world for naval strength, and China is naturally no exception. Since the beginning of the foreign affairs movement to open the curtain on China's modern navy, Despite the fiasco of the Sino-Japanese Naval Battle and despite the various technological blockades, China has not stopped developing its navy. It is precisely because of this persistence and belief that the Chinese navy has finally risen step by step and entered the ranks of naval powers. But who would have thought that more than 20 years ago, China's naval strength was far inferior to that of Japan.
Comparison of the Chinese and Japanese navies around 2000
At the turn of the century, the gap between the Chinese and Japanese navies at that time was very huge. At that time, the Chinese Navy, the main fleet in service, is still the old-fashioned 051 type destroyer, in terms of weapons, its equipped with double 25 mm anti-aircraft guns need to be manually operated, there is no air defense missile to resist air strike forces, in terms of electronic equipment far behind the mainstream warships of the same period in the world, mechanization is not comprehensive enough, informationization is seriously backward, stealth function is almost zero, are the problems of China's main fleet. Later, the construction of the Type 052 destroyer, the 053H2G guided missile frigate, and the addition of the Hyundai-class destroyer purchased from Russia have enhanced the strength of the Chinese Navy to a certain extent.
However, this growth in China is very insignificant compared to Japan's growth in the same period. Relying on Japan's own strong industrial and technological strength and the support of the United States, the development of the Japanese Navy can be described as extremely brilliant.
Since March 25, 1993, Japan has successively entered service with the Kongo-class Aegis destroyers, built 4 in five years, and the single tonnage has exceeded the 9400-ton mark, and its comprehensive performance and scientific and technological level are far superior to any ship in the navies of other Asian countries. At that time, China's Shenzhen ship, known as China's first ship, was only more than 6600 tons, and Japan was not small, in terms of endurance, Shenzhen ship endurance of 4000 nautical miles, King Kong ship endurance of 6000 nautical miles, only from the intuitive data can see the huge gap, not to mention the King Kong class Aegis destroyer in air defense system, radar system and other aspects of the advantages, at this time the Chinese destroyer, has been the King Kong class Aegis destroyer pulled away from the generation difference. The huge difference in the main battleship directly opened up the gap between the overall level of the navies of China and Japan.
The wheel of the times continues to move forward, and Japan never expected that its position would be reversed in the near future, and China's development of naval power ushered in a historic breakthrough. In terms of economy, since China's accession to the WTO in 2001, China has driven the manufacturing industry to show a spurt of development by virtue of the demographic dividend, the economic growth rate has remained at a high level for a long time, the national military expenditure has also increased, the navy's investment in funds has naturally risen, and various new naval projects have been launched, providing a sufficient material foundation for the Chinese Navy, which is not yet full of wings at this time.
With an economic foundation, without talents, it is like a smart woman who is difficult to cook without rice. At that time, China's own naval scientific research talents were insufficient, and even if there were talents, due to the lack of understanding of foreign first-class naval weapons, it was difficult to break through in the face of many scientific research difficulties. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, russia and Ukraine, as the main successors of the military industry, have experienced significant economic recessions, and a large number of military scientific and technological talents have been recruited to China to contribute to the development of the Chinese navy. More importantly, along with the talent, there are also a large number of technical information and weapons in stock. The most well-known aircraft carrier Varyag was auctioned off by the mainland in Ukraine, and the Type 055 destroyer, which we are proud of, actually uses improved technology from the UGT-25000 gas turbine purchased from Ukraine.
In addition, China has also purchased many technologies from Ukraine, such as Bison amphibious landing ship technology, supply ship technology, and icebreaker technology, which have made China's scientific research level and talent level have made leapfrog progress.
In a sense, Ukraine's role in the modernization of China's navy is almost decisive. There are no eternal friends, only eternal interests. Since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, the rise of Ukrainian nationalist forces, the pro-American government from Poroshenko to Zelenskiy, gradually let the relationship between China and Ukraine, to a very delicate situation, under the gradual oppression of the United States, the Ukrainian authorities even forcibly suspended china's acquisition of Madasic, hindering the important process of Chinese engine research and development. The friendship between China and Ukraine has gradually become weaker and weaker with Ukraine's single-minded surrender to NATO.
Thanks to the accumulation of the above-mentioned favorable factors, in just two decades, the development of the Chinese Navy can be described as a leap forward. Japan is also trying to do everything possible to expand its armaments, constantly increase military investment, and also try to lift the military armament restrictions on the navy by amending the Constitution, and is still not satisfied after having the advanced Kongo-class Aegis destroyers, and has built two Izumo-class helicopter carriers and two Hyuga-class aircraft carriers.
So today, in 2022, what is the specific situation of the gap in naval strength between China and Japan?
First of all, from the perspective of aircraft carrier size, China currently has two aircraft carriers in service: the Liaoning and the Shandong. Japan has four aircraft carriers: two Izumo-class and two Hyuga-class. Although Japan has a large number of aircraft carriers, there is a huge gap in the tonnage of aircraft carriers. At present, we know that the Liaoning ship has a full load displacement of 65,000 tons, and the tonnage of the Shandong ship is currently unknown, but the estimate is not much different. And Japan's "Hyuga" class helicopter carrier displacement is only 18,000 tons, Izumo class helicopter carrier displacement is only 27,000 tons, in terms of tonnage, Japan's helicopter carrier certainly has the title of aircraft carrier, but compared with the real aircraft carrier, there is still a big gap. Of course, Japan's helicopter carrier should not be underestimated.
On October 3 last year, the US F35B vertical take-off and landing fighter completed the take-off and landing on the Izumo-class helicopter aircraft carrier for the first time, and Japan has purchased more than 40 F35Bs to be loaded on the Izumo-class aircraft carrier, which means that the fifth-generation fighter developed by the United States can be applied on the helicopter aircraft carrier and play a greater deterrent. Therefore, for some time in the past, the Japanese media often claimed that with the combination of Izumo + F35B, it would be able to make the Japanese naval power surpass China and return to the first place in Asia.
For this problem, in fact, there is no need to worry too much: First, in order to be compatible with the vertical take-off and landing function, the F35B fighter is a weaker presence in the F35 series of fighters in terms of overall performance. Second, the Izumo-class aircraft carrier has an inherent disadvantage, once it sails, it does not have its own early warning aircraft, which means that the Izumo-class aircraft carrier is easy to face the situation of "blindness" in actual combat, and there are great safety risks. In fact, China's aircraft carriers have more advantages in installed capacity, not only can carry more fighters, but also can be compatible with the fixed-wing early warning aircraft under development in the future, greatly improving the perception and survivability of aircraft carriers, and with the development of a new generation of carrier-based aircraft, the strength of China's aircraft carrier battle group will only become stronger.
Judging from the top destroyers of China and Japan, the current Chinese Type 055 destroyer has a full load displacement of about 13,000 tons, while Japan has improved the Maya-class destroyer on the basis of the original Atago-class destroyer, with a full load displacement of nearly 10,500 tons and a tonnage difference of 2,500 tons. Technically, the 055 destroyer adopts the integrated technology of accommodating 4 different bands of phased array radar, has 111 vertical launch units with one-pit four-bomb capability, and is equipped with Hongqi 9B and Haihongqi 16 anti-aircraft missiles, as well as Eagle Strike 18 anti-ship missiles, Yu-8A anti-submarine missiles.
In contrast, Japan's Maya-class destroyers, although installed with a new Aegis system, the radar still uses a relatively backward passive phased array radar type, and only 96 vertical launch units, and it is difficult to be compatible with large-size missiles, the main weapons are sea sparrow anti-aircraft missiles, Aslok rocket-boosted torpedoes, harpoons and SSM-2 anti-ship missiles. From the perspective of weapon configuration, the 055 destroyer has perfect performance in all aspects and has both attack and defense, while the Maya-class destroyer is relatively backward in anti-ship capability. In summary, the Type 055 destroyer has surpassed Japan's most advanced Maya-class destroyer.
In addition to achieving superiority in naval technology, in fact, the size of the navy's shield ships is even more crushing. At present, China has 8 Type 055 destroyers, 25 Type 052D destroyers, and 6 Type 052C destroyers, and the total number of "shield ships" has reached 39; while Japan has only 8 shield ships, four of which are the old Kongo-class Aegis destroyers more than 20 years ago. The difference in size of 4 times is no longer something that technology can compensate for.
Based on the current gap between the Chinese and Japanese navies, in terms of aircraft carrier size and aircraft carrier combat effectiveness, as well as the gap in destroyer technology and number, the current Japan is probably 5-10 years behind China. When I think back more than 20 years ago, when China was still lagging behind the Japanese Navy, I really had to sigh: feng shui took turns.
Of course, the rise of the Chinese navy is actually due to the element of luck in the right time and place. Not only did the economic rise have financial support and talent support, but it also happened to encounter such a major historical event as the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a large number of talents, technology and weapons flowed out, so that China has gained a lot. Behind everything that seems to be luck, it also reflects the inevitability of rising national strength. Of course, surpassing Japan is not a matter of self-satisfaction, and the purpose of the Existence of the Chinese Navy is not to surpass any country, but to defend China's maritime sovereignty and resist external maritime hegemony.
At present, with its own fleet of 11 aircraft carriers, the United States has abused hegemonism all over the world and repeatedly entered the South China Sea to provoke. Despite the outrage, the huge gulf between China and the United States in the Navy is a reality that we must face up to. Therefore, in the future, China's naval road still has a long way to go.
Once China was defeated by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War, today's China, after a hundred years of struggle, has finally made up for this gap and achieved transcendence. It can be seen from this that on the road of adhering to the socialist road, anything that seems impossible to accomplish is likely to be written as a miracle by China, and this is the case in Japan, and the United States is no exception.
(Periscoper on April 11, 2022, please do not reprint without authorization, plagiarism will be investigated!) ）