Although it paid lip service to Mao and assigned political commissars aboard ships, the Navy continued to train, build, and maintain the fleets as well the coastal defense and aviation arms, as well as in the performance of its mission. Naval forces were used to suppress a revolt in Wuhan in July 1967, but the service largely avoided the turmoil affecting the country. During the Cultural Revolution, a number of top naval commissars and commanders were purged. Under the leadership of Minister of National Defense Lin Biao, large investments were made in naval construction during the frugal years immediately after the Great Leap Forward. Through the upheavals of the late 1950s and 1960s the Navy remained relatively undisturbed. Eventually Soviet assistance progressed to the point that a joint Sino-Soviet Pacific Ocean fleet was under discussion. In shipbuilding the Soviets first assisted the Chinese, then the Chinese copied Soviet designs without assistance, and finally the Chinese produced vessels of their own design. With Soviet assistance, the navy reorganized in 19 into the North Sea Fleet, East Sea Fleet, and South Sea Fleet, and a corps of admirals and other naval officers was established from the ranks of the ground forces. By 1954 an estimated 2,500 Soviet naval advisers were in China-possibly one adviser to every thirty Chinese naval personnel-and the Soviet Union began providing modern ships. The Naval Air Force was added two years later. It then consisted of a motley collection of ships and boats acquired from the Kuomintang forces. The Naval Academy was set up at Dalian on 22 November 1949, mostly with Soviet instructors. The navy was established on 23 April 1949 by consolidating regional naval forces under Joint Staff Department command in Jiangyan (now in Taizhou, Jiangsu). During the Landing Operation on Hainan Island, the communists used wooden junks fitted with mountain guns as both transport and warships against the ROCN. In 1949, Mao Zedong asserted that "to oppose imperialist aggression, we must build a powerful navy". The PLAN traces its lineage to units of the Republic of China Navy (ROCN) who defected to the People's Liberation Army towards the end of the Chinese Civil War. Ī gunboat in used in the Battle of Toumenshan
With a personnel strength of 240,000 personnel, including 15,000 marines and 26,000 naval air force personnel, it is the second largest navy in the world in terms of tonnage which stands at 1,820,222 tonne as of 2019, only behind the United States Navy, and has the largest number of major surface combatants of any navy globally with an overall battle force of approximately 350 surface ships and submarines - in comparison, the United States Navy's battle force is approximately 293 ships.
The People's Liberation Army Navy is composed of five branches the Submarine Force, the Surface Force, the Coastal Defense Force, the Marine Corps and the Naval Air Force. The People's Republic of China (PRC) along with the Republic of China (ROC), Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines claims a significant amount of maritime boundary located within the South China Sea. Chinese strategists term the development of the PLAN from a green-water navy into "a regional blue-water defensive and offensive navy." As the PLAN expands into a blue-water navy, regular exercises and naval patrols in the South China Sea have been increased, particularly near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea and the island of Taiwan, which it claims. Traditionally subordinated to the PLA Ground Force, PLAN leaders were now able to advocate for a renewed attention towards the seas.Ĭhinese military officials have outlined plans to operate in the first and second island chains, and are working towards blue water capability.
In the 1990s, following the fall of the Soviet Union and a shift towards a more Forward-oriented foreign and security policy, the leaders of the Chinese military were freed from worrying overland border disputes. Until the late 1980s, the PLAN was largely a riverine and littoral force ( brown-water navy).
Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union provided assistance to the PLAN in the form of naval advisers and export of equipment and technology. The PLAN traces its lineage to naval units fighting during the Chinese Civil War and was established on 23 April 1949. The People's Liberation Army Navy ( PLAN Chinese: 中国人民解放军海军 pinyin: Zhōngguó Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn Hǎijūn), also known as the People's Navy, Chinese Navy, or PLA Navy, is the maritime service branch of the People's Liberation Army.