People's Liberation Army Navy

People's Liberation Army Navy
Emblem of the People's Liberation Army Navy
Founded	23 April 1949; 75 years ago (1949-04-23)
Country	China
Allegiance	Chinese Communist Party[1]
Type	Navy
Role	Naval warfare
Size	350,000 active personnel (2024)[2] 788 ships (2024)[3] 600 aircraft (2024)[4]
Part of	People's Liberation Army
March	人民海军向前进 ("The People's Navy Marches Forward")
Fleet	3 aircraft carriers 4 landing helicopter docks 12 amphibious transport docks 32 landing ship tanks 33 landing ship mediums 62 destroyers 58 frigates 75 corvettes 150 missile boats 26 submarine chasers 17+ gunboats 36 mine countermeasure vessels 79 submarines 19 replenishment ships 232 auxiliaries
Engagements	Chinese Civil War Vietnam War[citation needed] Sino-Vietnamese War Johnson South Reef Skirmish Anti-piracy operations in Somalia Red Sea crisis
Website	Official website
Commanders
Commander	Admiral Hu Zhongming
Political Commissar	Admiral Yuan Huazhi
Chief of Staff	Admiral Liu Zizhu
Insignia
Flag and ensign
Jack
Badge
Sleeve badge
Aircraft flown
Electronic warfare	Y-8
Fighter	J-11, J-15
Helicopter	Z-8, Z-9, Mi-8, Z-10, Ka-28, AS365
Interceptor	J-7, J-8
Patrol	Y-8, Y-9
Reconnaissance	Y-9
Trainer	JL-8, JL-9
Transport	Y-7, Y-9
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	中国人民解放军海军
Traditional Chinese	中國人民解放軍海軍
Literal meaning	China People Liberation Army Sea Army
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngguó Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn Hǎijūn
People's Navy
Simplified Chinese	人民海军
Traditional Chinese	人民海軍
Literal meaning	People Navy
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Rénmín Hǎijūn
Chinese Navy
Simplified Chinese	中国海军
Traditional Chinese	中國海軍
Literal meaning	China Navy
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngguó Hǎijūn

People's Liberation Army
Executive departments
Central Military Commission Ministry of National Defense
Staff
Chairman of the CMC Joint Staff Department of the CMC Political Work Department of the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CMC
Services
Ground Force  Navy  Air Force Rocket Force
Arms
Aerospace Force Cyberspace Force Information Support Force Joint Logistics Support Force
Domestic troops
People's Armed Police China Coast Guard Militia Maritime Militia
Special operations force
PLA Special Operations Forces Special Police Unit of the PAP Snow Leopard Commando Unit Mountain Eagle Commando Unit
Military districts
Eastern Theater Command Southern Theater Command Western Theater Command Northern Theater Command Central Theater Command
History of the Chinese military
Military history of China
Military ranks of China
Ranks of the PLA Ground Force Ranks of the PLA Navy Ranks of the PLA Air Force
v t e

The People's Liberation Army Navy,^[a] also known as the People's Navy, PLA Navy or simply Chinese Navy, is the naval warfare branch of the People's Liberation Army, the national military of the People's Republic of China. It is composed of five sub-branches: the Surface Force, the Submarine Force, the Coastal Defense Force, the Marine Corps and the Naval Air Force, with a total strength of 350,000 personnel, including 70,000 marines and 30,000 naval aviation personnel.^[5] The PLAN's combat units are deployed among three theater command fleets, namely the North Sea, East Sea and South Sea Fleet, which serve the Northern, Eastern and Southern Theater Command, respectively.

The PLAN was formally established on 23 April 1949^[6] and traces its lineage to maritime fighting units during the Chinese Civil War, including many elements of the Republic of China Navy which had defected. Until the late 1980s, the PLAN was largely a riverine and littoral force (brown-water navy) mostly in charge of coastal defense and patrol against potential Nationalist amphibious invasions and territorial waters disputes in the East and South China Sea (roles that are now largely relegated to the paramilitary China Coast Guard), and had been traditionally a maritime support subordinate to the PLA Ground Force. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chinese leadership were freed from overland border concerns with the northern neighbor and shifted towards more forward-oriented foreign and national security policies in the 1990s, and the PLAN leaders were able to advocate for renewed attention toward limited command of the seas as a green-water navy operating in the marginal seas within the range of coastal air parity.

Into the 21st century, Chinese military officials have outlined plans to operate with blue water capability between the first and second island chains,^[7] with Chinese strategists talking about the modernization of the PLAN into "a regional blue-water defensive and offensive navy."^[8] Transitioning into a blue-water navy, regular naval exercises and patrols have increased in the Taiwan Strait, the Senkaku Islands/Diaoyutai in the East China Sea, and within the nine-dash line in the South China Sea, and all of which China claims as its territory^[9][10][11] despite the Republic of China (ROC, i.e. Taiwan), Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines each also claiming a significant part of the South China Sea.^[12][13] Some exercises and patrols of the PLAN in recent years went as close as the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Japan, Taiwan, and Alaska although undisputed territorial waters have been not been crossed except in cases of innocent passage.^{[14][15][16][17]}

As of 2024^[update], the PLAN is the second-largest navy in the world by total displacement tonnage^[18] — at 2 million tons in 2024, behind only the United States Navy (USN)^[19] — and the largest navy globally by number of active sea-going ships (excluding coastal missile boats, gunboats and minesweepers)^[20][21] with over 370 surface ships and submarines in service,^[22] compared to approximately 292 ships and submarines in the USN.^[23] However, the Chinese fleets are much newer and smaller in tonnage, as about 70% of their warships were launched after 2010 and consist mostly of newly designed destroyers, frigates and corvettes with only a few amphibious warfare ships and the two commissioned aircraft carriers, while only about 25% of the American ships were launched after 2010 and majority of their tonnage are from its eleven 100,000-ton supercarriers, 21 large amphibious assault ships and experimental capital ships such as the Zumwalt-class destroyers.^[24] The dominance of Chinese shipbuilding capacity (over 230 times greater than the United States, according to the Alliance for American Manufacturing^[25]) have led the Office of Naval Intelligence to project that China will have 475 battle force ships by 2035 while the USN will have 305 to 317,^[26] which would put the United States in a numerical and operational disadvantage especially in the West Pacific according to a chair naval strategy professor at the Naval War College.^[27]

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