NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan \u2014 China\u2019s navy has introduced a new guided-missile frigate designed for coastal as well as open-sea attacks after 20 years in the making, according to Chinese state media.<\/p>\n
Not quite a technological breakthrough, military analysts say.<\/p>\n
But the 054A frigate has advantages that are expected to raise the People\u2019s Liberation Army Navy clout along and beyond the Chinese southeast coasts and in turn fluster nearby Taiwan and Japan \u2013 each with concerns about Beijing\u2019s maritime activities \u2013 while putting the United States on higher alert, analysts say.<\/p>\n
The frigate comparable to the U.S. Navy\u2019s Constellation-class ships can operate in blue waters, meaning open seas far from its own coasts \u2014 an asset that its predecessors lacked, said David Silbey, a military historian and associate teaching professor with the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s 054A could do anti-submarine warfare as well due to its helicopter launch features, Silbey added. Helicopters increase a warship\u2019s submarine detection range. The frigates could be produced fast in high numbers, he added.<\/p>\n
State media outlets reported that the frigate did a training mission on Aug. 22. Part of a PLA Eastern Theater Command flotilla, it joined other vessels for combat-related training, command coordination tests and emergency responses, state broadcaster CCTV News said.<\/p>\n
The 054A frigates will grab attention offshore because they add to an already expanding naval fleet, experts believe.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaiwan is concerned about its increased anti-submarine, escort and fleet air defense capabilities around the Taiwan Strait,\u201d said Huang Chung-ting, associate research fellow with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.<\/p>\n
\u201cJapan will pay attention to its activities in the East China Sea, the Miyako Strait and around the first-island chain,\u201d Huang said, referring to Japan itself as well as other land masses between China and the open Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
He said Washington would worry about whether the Chinese navy is forming a \u201clarge enough modern escort fleet\u201d able to maintain long-term deployment in the open sea.<\/p>\n
The frigate could become a \u201cmultiplier for bigger units in a vast array of tasks\u201d, said Enrico Cau, an associate researcher at the Taiwan Strategy Research Association think tank.<\/p>\n
China sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military drills nearby since 2022 \u2014 as Washington continues to help arm Taiwan in case of any conflict. Japan, a U.S. treaty ally, contests with China a chain of uninhabited islets and Beijing resents Tokyo\u2019s stance on Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Chinese media reports call the 054A, also known as the Jiangkai II, a second Ningde branded ship type after the 056 guided-missile corvette that entered service in 2016. It has little if any unique technology, analysts believe. It even comes with \u201climited\u201d missile capacity, rendering it \u201cnot a particularly powerful ship,\u201d Silbey said.<\/p>\n
But it matters because it would bolster the navy\u2019s overall potential, the experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the multirole designation allows it to cover an important gap between smaller ships designed for a limited set of littoral, coastal and short-range missions and bigger ships designed for different tasks in long range missions,\u201d Cau said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan \u2014 China\u2019s navy has introduced a new guided-missile frigate designed for coastal as well…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,6236,1182,1184,25928,6235,10564,8,26721,2123,488,6214],"class_list":["post-84693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-china","tag-circulated-defense-news","tag-circulated-military-times","tag-circulated-navy-times","tag-defense-spending","tag-dn-dnr","tag-frigate","tag-japan","tag-navy-times","tag-shipbuilding","tag-taiwan","tag-warship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}