Quora Answer: What Would a Naval War between China & the US Look Like?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What would a naval war between China and the US look like?”

The People’s Republic of China could conceivably win a war with the United States in their near abroad due to advantages in logistics, terrain and sheer numbers, which offset the vast American technological advantage.  However, it will not be a naval engagement.

The PLA Navy has just over 250,000 personnel, and over700 surface craft.  However, we must consider that just over 100 are missile gunboats of various sorts, and just under 100 are submarines.  The former are necessary for estuarine and riverine engagements, but unsuitable for operations in the high seas.  The latter are useful for area denial, but cannot fin engagements by themselves.

The US Pacific Fleet itself, the 3^rd, 6^th, and 7^th fleet, has half that number of personnel, 1,200 aircraft, and over 200 vessels, including many more capital ships.  They could possibly deploy half a dozen aircraft carriers, as opposed to China’s single aircraft carrier.

This force disparity means that any engagement in the high seas will likely be one-sided and short.  China will be crushed.  China does not have the surface naval presence to take on the US in a straight-up naval engagement, and they know it.  They are not stupid.  Whilst China is building towards that eventuality, that is several decades away.  It is not simply a matter of building ships.  It involves developing a doctrine for the deployment of new and emerging technologies, from their perspective.  The American had the British to hand over to them carrier operations, for example.  The Chinese have no such luxury, and are building from scratch.

Accordingly, Chinese strategy involves a large number of anti-surface missiles of extended range, dispersed among various types of mobile launchers.  This is an area denial weapon.  A hundred missiles is still cheaper than a single aircraft carrier.  This keeps any American fleet at range, and limits their effectiveness in an air campaign against the Chinese mainland.  China wants to fight any war on its own terms, and fighting at sea is not it.