China's shipbuilding capacity is 200 times better compared to the capability of the United States. This alarming detail was revealed in a leaked unclassified report slide of the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).
ONI Claims China's Shipbuilding Capacity 200x Better Than US
According to Fox News' latest report, the unclassified slide already spread online. Experts said that the information it contains highlights concerns over the growing naval capability of the Chinese government.
Specifically, the slide concerns many military experts because it claims that the naval vessel production capability of China is faster compared to the United States.
Brent Sadler, a senior researcher for naval warfare and advanced technology in the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation, warned that the Chinese military sees this decade as a strategic opportunity.
"I don't see any near-term bending of the curve where we actually start closing the gap with the Chinese," he added.
Sadler shared his comments after the unclassified ONI report slide was leaked. But, a Navy official, who confirmed the authenticity of the leaked presentation, explained why the U.S. should not be concerned about it.
"The slide was developed by the Office of Naval Intelligence from multiple public sources as part of an overall brief on strategic competition," he said.
He further explained that the leaked ONI slide only shows the trends and context of the shipbuilding capacity of China.
The Naval spokesperson added that the information it contained was not intended to be a deep analysis of the commercial shipbuilding industry of the PRC (People's Republic of China).
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Alarming Details Shown by ONI's Leaked Slide
The Drive recently reported that the unclassified ONI report slide contains a graphic showing that the shipyards of China have a capacity of more than 23.2 million tons.
If you compare this to the 100,000-ton shipyard capacity of the U.S., then there's definitely a very alarming wide gap between the two countries.
Aside from this, the slide also contains the projected battle forces sizes of the People's Liberation Army Navy and the U.S. Navy.
The report slide shows the total number of battle forces, which include mine warfare ships, major amphibious ships, large combat support auxiliary vessels, submarines, as well as combatant vessels.
Based on the leaked ONI slide, the projected size of the PLAN battle forces in 2035 is 475. Meanwhile, USN's battle forces are expected to only reach around 305-317.
These are just some of the shipbuilding capacity details that were found on the unclassified ONI slide. You can click here to see more.
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