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Recently, Qatar's Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad announced that he would increase cooperation projects with China and expand the areas of cooperation between the two countries.
Among them, the most concerned is the fact that Qatar has abandoned South Korean shipbuilding in favor of Chinese shipbuilding.
All the ships in Qatar have always been built by South Koreans for them, which does not represent the high level of Korean shipbuilding, but represents the United States behind Qatar's choice.
Today, the change in Qatar's attitude means that China's comprehensive national strength has improved.
Saad said he was glad to establish a cooperative relationship with Chinese shipyards, and Qatar ordered 18 LNG carriers from China at once, which are specially used to transport liquefied natural gas.
The contract between Qatar and China is the highest single new ship order in the world, representing Qatar's full recognition of China's shipbuilding strength.
Qatar's move told the world at once that China now has the ability to develop, design and build ultra-large ships, and China's shipbuilding industry will develop rapidly in the future, especially after the smooth delivery of LNG transmission, China's shipbuilding industry will have a name in the world.
LNG carriers have always been the most difficult ships in the world to build due to the special goods they carry and the professional requirements for transportation are relatively high.
Therefore, Qatar's choice this time, as well as the successful construction of subsequent ships, must be an indelible page in the history of the development of China's shipbuilding industry.
Reference source: Guangming.com, May 16, 2024 - Qatari official: In the past, all our ships came from South Korea, but now we choose Chinese shipyards
The loneliness of the Korean shipbuilding industry
Before that, in addition to the fact that South Korea is behind the United States, why is Qatar willing to spend a lot of money and ask South Korea to help them build ships?
The answer, of course, is that South Korea has the ability to build ships, although South Korea is a small land, and it is difficult to be self-sufficient even in vegetable cultivation, but their shipbuilding industry has developed particularly well and is one of the support points of South Korea's heavy industry.
Countries like Qatar, which do not have any shipbuilding heavy industry base, often give orders to countries that rely on the shipbuilding industry for their survival to achieve a win-win situation.
Because of the long-term needs of customers, the shipbuilding industry in Korea has been able to develop rapidly, and the Korean shipbuilding industry is famous. However, when it encounters a manufacturing power like China, which is "imitation and transcendence", South Korea is powerless to return to the sky.
Since ten years ago, China has surpassed South Korea in the development of shipbuilding, for example, the most critical gross tonnage, China ranks first in the world, and then the total orders of China's shipbuilding industry are also soaring, South Korea is falling behind in comparison.
At the beginning of this year, South Korea was making the final struggle, and the government took out 48.6 billion yuan to invest in three shipbuilding giants, "Samsung Heavy Industries", "Korea Shipbuilding Marine" and "Hanwha Marine", wanting them to improve their shipbuilding technology, rely on the previous shipbuilding foundation, and want to regain the previous leading edge.
South Korea attaches great importance to the transformation and upgrading of the shipbuilding industry this time, and the government has not only discussed with shipbuilding giants many times, but they have even signed relevant cooperation agreements to let the South Korean regime escort them.
From the point of view of the goal, South Korea wants to develop a new type of liquefied hydrogen carrier this time, trying to catch up with China from other aspects, and South Korea also wants to enter the relevant international shipbuilding industry organizations and participate in the formulation of relevant international standards.
It seems that the battle that South Korea is going to fight this time is quite difficult.
But South Korea's current predicament is not due to the emergence of a formidable rival like China, but to the regression of South Korea's shipbuilding industry itself.
For example, the loss of shipbuilding professionals and the related lack of labor are affecting the development of the shipbuilding industry in South Korea.
According to statistics, as of the end of February 2024, South Korea has received orders for ships with a gross tonnage of 38.61 million tons, which is very large.
In 2014, South Korea's shipyards were in full swing, with more than 200,000 people involved in the shipbuilding industry, which was also the historical peak of South Korea's largest number of orders.
But in 2022, the number of workers involved in South Korea's shipbuilding industry was just over 95,000.
The sharp decline in data is reflected in the fact that more people are exiting than entering.
What's worse is that the number of students in South Korea who are willing to study shipbuilding is getting smaller and smaller, showing a trend of Koreans abandoning their housekeeping skills.
For example, Seoul National University, the best university in South Korea, has the lowest competition rate among all major majors in the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering.
That's why the South Korean government is spending money to improve the status of the shipbuilding industry in society, trying to convince students that studying ship research and design will be able to achieve great goals in the future.
But the South Korean government is too optimistic, they see the internal crisis, they have pinpointed the internal crisis, and of course they have the ability to solve the internal crisis. But for the development of shipbuilding in other countries, South Korea cannot measure it.
For example, China has developed rapidly in the shipbuilding industry, and development includes comprehensiveness, but South Korea believes that in terms of technology, China started relatively late, so there is still a gap of two or three years between China and South Korea.
South Korea only needs to spend money on training more high-end technical talents at a critical moment to widen the gap with China.
But that's not the case.
The rapid development of China's shipbuilding industry
In the eyes of other countries, China's manufacturing level has always been at the low end, so it can only make some lonely cold pots, similar to this kind of utensils to meet everyone's daily needs. By the time people around the world saw the words man in China, China's manufacturing industry had occupied a stable market in some high-end fields. For example, the Chinese shipbuilding industry.
Nowadays, China's shipbuilding industry continues to expand its share of the market, and the product structure is constantly optimized, and it can be seen from the order side that China has the ability to build the world's largest ships, even if it is a ship that transports natural gas or other dangerous chemicals.
In November 2023, China successfully delivered the large cruise ship "Aida Modu", which shocked the world, because China has been able to independently build aircraft carriers, LNG, and large cruise ships without realizing it, and has these three design and manufacturing capabilities, China's manufacturing level can not be underestimated.
For example, today, when Qatar handed over all shipbuilding orders to China, the world has already seen the level of China's shipbuilding industry.
Qatar's order for 18 ships to China this time is the world's top level of transport ships, which will not only enhance China's popularity, but also further increase the ceiling of China's shipbuilding industry.
In terms of tonnage, this is a huge natural gas carrier that has not yet appeared in the human world, and if China can successfully deliver the ship, it means that China is the first country to master such a large tonnage shipbuilding technology, and there will be opportunities to break through the possibility of manufacturing larger ships in the future.
In addition, the transportation of natural gas requires specific environment and conditions, and the temperature in the storage tank must be about -163 degrees Celsius to achieve high temperature and high pressure resistance. And China received orders for 18 ships at once, which is also a challenge in the manufacturing sector.
In the eyes of other countries, the level of China's shipbuilding industry ranks first in the world.
Japan recently published an article on China's shipbuilding capabilities, in which it reported that the throne of the world's strongest navy has been taken away by China, because China has long mastered the highest level of shipbuilding, and even said that China's shipbuilding capacity is more than 230 times that of the United States.
Although I don't know how much of it is still in it, China's shipbuilding productivity is indeed second to none, and most importantly, it means that in the event of war, China will be able to use this ability to heart or repair ships.
In short, the Japanese article praises China for a small component, and it is true that it is necessary to cause a crisis in the United States, after all, the United States has only 0.1% of the shipbuilding market.
Not only that, the United States is also studying the level of China's shipbuilding industry, and they know that the development of this level is inseparable from the creation of a maritime power.
The U.S. Department of Defense released a report last year stating that China's navy is already the largest in the world. Both the United States and Japan are constantly playing up the fact that China wants to become a maritime power.
In fact, the reason why China's shipbuilding industry can develop rapidly is entirely because the industry does not rely on commerce, but is guided by national instructions and supported by state funds, so that the industry can develop rapidly.
Like the United States, their shipbuilding industry has been slow to develop because it has become privatized.
South Korea is now aware of this, which is why it will spend a huge amount of money to try to learn from China in turn.
The reputation of the Korean ship has decreased
At the end of December 2023, a ship caught fire and exploded in the Yangtze River, which came from South Korea.
Although there were no casualties, the incident stunned audiences around the world. Why did the Korean shipbuilding industry, which was known as the world's No. 1 shipbuilding industry at the time, have such low-level accidents?
In fact, South Korea's shipbuilding industry is the world's No. 1 name, because in 2014, a South Korean passenger liner suddenly sank because of the same situation, causing 304 deaths.
The passenger ship, named "Sewol", was purchased from Japan by the Korean shipbuilding company, and after the purchase, they were used to carry passengers and transport goods.
On the day of the accident, the passenger ship was heading from Incheon Port to Jeju Island, and I don't know what it hit, the whole ship suddenly tilted, the containers and passengers on board fell to one side, and the whole passenger ship swayed on the wall.
Maybe it's because the captain is an inexperienced newcomer, or maybe the ship is really coming to the end of its life, and a series of rescues by the captain and other staff are to no avail, and the huge passenger ship is still slowly sinking!
This incident has become a black spot in the history of Korean shipbuilding, and it is also the biggest political crisis of Park Geun-hye's time in Taiwan.