Taiwan: The Reason China Is Building A Fleet of Amphibious Assault Ships?

China is building some spectacularly large amphibious assault ships (LHAs, or informally “gators”), building them very fast. What can these ships do, and what is China planning to do with them? The future power dynamics of the Asia-Pacific may turn on the ability of China’s amphibious fleet to establish control over Taiwan.

The Type 076

The Type 076 is, to put it bluntly, a beast. It is as long as the US Navy’s America class LHA, but considerably wider. It is substantially larger than the four Type 075 LHAs that China has built over the last decade, displacing an estimated 48000 tons. It will (like the British Queen Elizabeth class) have a dual island, likely due to the need to manage complex air operations involving a large number of different kinds of aircraft.

This is a major aviation platform. It will undoubtedly carry a significant number of helicopters specialized for a variety of defensive and offensive missions, from anti-submarine warfare to ferrying troops to a beach-head to local fire support for those troops. It will also serve as a platform for short and medium range drones that will defend the ship and protect the beach-head. The ship is equipped with a catapult system, unusual for an amphibious assault vessel. It is unlikely that this system will be used to launch fixed-wing fighters. Rather, it will allow the Type 076 to launch larger, more sophisticated drones.

Any vision for how UAVs are supposed to affect naval warfare has to include an account of how the UAVs make it to the combat theater and the traditional answer to that question is “build flat-decked aviation ships.”  In a contested invasion, big amphibs like the Type 076 will act as mobile airfields, providing both direct combat support and acting as waypoints for airborne and marine reinforcement of an established beachhead.

The Fleet

The expansion of China’s amphibious force is nothing short of historic.

A decade ago, China had no large amphibious platforms. Now it has four big flat-decked amphibs alongside a force of nine landing platform docks (LPDs), and will soon welcome the biggest amphibious assault ships in the world. This is a rate of increase reminiscent of the great dreadnought races of the early 20th century, when Britain, Japan, Germany, and the United States built up spectacular fleets of large battleships in not much more than a decade.

However, it is also one-sided; American shipbuilding has shown no inclination to try to keep up with Chinese expansion.

It doesn’t take analytical chops to guess that China is intending something. The United States has the world’s largest fleet of amphibious assault vessels, but it carries out very few amphibious assaults. This speaks to the flexibility of the form, something that China will undoubtedly take advantage of in the future.

But at the moment, everyone’s eyes are focused on Taiwan, and it’s becoming tough to insist that China’s amphibious assault fleet is intended for something other than assaulting its wayward province.

A Threat to Taiwan?

There’s no reason to write off the defense of Taiwan yet.

China is taking a huge gamble by investing in these large ships, as Taiwanese (and American) investments in anti-access technologies could put these vessels at great risk. As the Ukrainians have demonstrated, warships operating in confined waters are necessarily vulnerable, even to opponents who themselves lack a substantial navy. The People’s Liberation Army Navy is much larger than the Russian Black Sea Fleet and considerably more sophisticated in both offense and defense, but so are the Americans and the Taiwanese. In the end, Beijing may be counting on the threat of an amphibious assault (which the Type 076 makes more credible) as much as the eventuality of an assault itself.

In any case, the People’s Republic of China is acting very much like a country that sees a major amphibious assault in its future, and authorities across the Pacific need to continue to pay close heed to Chinese construction.

About the Author: Dr. Robert Farley

Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.