The American media are eyeing Chinese shipbuilders: they are ready for a protracted war, while the United States is not
China's shipbuilding industry has led the world for 14 consecutive years, and the US media can't sit still.
On February 13, local time, the Wall Street Journal published a long article titled "China's shipyards are ready for a protracted war, but the United States is not", affirming China's status as "the world's largest shipbuilding country" on the one hand, dwarfing the United States, and on the other hand, trying to generalize the concept of national security and spreading the "China threat theory" to Chinese shipbuilders.
According to the report, China has risen to become a global power by "becoming the world's factory". Now, China is expanding this power and its military power through another remarkable industrial feat, "becoming the world's shipyard."
The US media first pointed out that last year, more than half of the world's commercial shipbuilding production came from China, making China the world's largest shipbuilding country. In addition to this, most of the remaining ships came from South Korea and Japan. "The size [of China's shipbuilding] is really almost unfathomable, dwarfing the U.S. shipbuilding industry to an incredible degree. Thomas Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said.
The West used to produce a lot of ships, but the shipyards that helped empires thrive, expand trade, and win wars have declined: Europe produces only 5% of the world's production, and the United States contributes almost nothing.
Picture from the Wall Street Journal
Shipyard workers build a shipbuilding in Yichang, Hubei Province, January 20, 2024. Image from IC Photo
Immediately afterward, the Wall Street Journal began to focus on the military significance of the development of China's shipbuilding industry, saying that "this shipbuilding empire marks China's historic transformation from an inward-looking continental country to a maritime power" and that "history has proved a clear law: there is no naval power that is not a dominant commercial maritime power at the same time, including in shipbuilding and the global shipping industry."
U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Thomas J. Anderson said, "Clearly, China's commercial shipbuilding industry provides them with a huge advantage in terms of shipbuilding capabilities." ”
In this regard, the reason of the US media is that large Chinese shipbuilding companies that build merchant ships such as container ships, oil tankers and bulk carriers for Chinese and Western shipping companies often also build warships for the Chinese Navy. These shipyards have built up a vast supply chain that has helped build the world's largest navy by number of ships.
In the event of a protracted conflict, China's shipyards would give the Chinese navy a clear advantage, the article added. Chinese shipyards are large enough to reach wartime production speeds, and are able to quickly ramp up production, replacing lost ships and repairing damaged ones.
U.S. shipyards had this capability during World War II, but now, America's once-thriving shipbuilding industry has shrunk and is struggling to meet even peacetime needs. There are several shipyards that have only one big customer, the US Navy. And these shipyards often face backlogs, worker shortages, scarce suppliers, and cost overruns.
In this context, Anderson argues that the main difference between the shipbuilding industry base of China and the United States is that China benefits from a large volume of commercial shipbuilding business. In contrast, the U.S. government is largely solely responsible for all costs of ships and related infrastructure.
As a result, there was a situation in the United States where submarines were suspended due to delays in repairs, and the construction of new submarines was behind schedule. U.S. Defense Department officials said last year that the U.S. Navy expects to acquire two new Virginia-class submarines each year, but the current acceptance rate is only 1.4.
U.S. strategists say the conflict in Ukraine has exposed the U.S. dilemma, which is that the war could last a long time, and that U.S. weapons factories have struggled to keep up with the demands of the war. American ammunition manufacturers and shipyards are not ready for war with China.
The Wall Street Journal article has repeatedly played up the fact that the commercial and military sectors are sharing the resources of China's shipbuilding industry. Experts in the US media even directly changed the concept, alarmistically saying that "all these countries that buy ships from China are paying China to build the shipyards they need to repair their fleets in wartime, which is a bit unacceptable."
On January 15, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the latest data on the mainland's shipbuilding industry, China's shipbuilding industry has ranked first in the world for 14 consecutive years, and China has become the only country in the world to achieve comprehensive growth in the three major indicators.
According to the latest data, in 2023, the mainland's shipbuilding completion volume will be 42.32 million dwt, a year-on-year increase of 11.8%, the new order volume will be 71.2 million dwt, a year-on-year increase of 56.4%, and by the end of 2023, the hand-held order volume will be 139.39 million dwt, a year-on-year increase of 32.0%, and all indicators will achieve double-digit growth for the first time.
On January 1, the first domestic large cruise ship "Aida Modu" departed from Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Port and officially opened its first commercial voyage. The picture is from the top of the news
In response to a similar incident on February 1, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin pointed out that in fact, the U.S. government is the main driver of the military-civilian integration policy. The U.S. military-civilian integration policy can be traced back to before World War I, when the U.S. Department of Defense set up offices in Silicon Valley and other major technology towns to guide high-tech companies to accelerate the militarization and actual combat of technology. Many large U.S. multinational corporations are military-civilian integration, and their business scope and product types span the military-civilian field.
The spokesperson urged the US to provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese enterprises to operate, and China will continue to firmly safeguard the legitimate and legitimate rights and interests of its own enterprises.
In response to the US media, the Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen Shipping, one of the customers of the mainland shipping company, stressed that the company's ships were built by the commercial department of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, which is separate from the company's military department, and the shipbuilding contract between the two sides is purely of a civilian commercial nature.
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