Key Points and Summary – Chinese officers have long threatened to sink U.S. aircraft carriers, banking on DF-21D/DF-26 and DF-17 “carrier-killer” salvos, swarming drones, and improving carrier wings to keep American strike groups at bay.
-The politics are brutal: even damage to a single carrier could reshape U.S. resolve and strategy toward Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Su-35 from China. Image Credit: Chinese Air Force PLAAF.
China Aircraft Carrier Operations. Image Credit: Chinese Navy.
-Washington counters with layered Aegis defenses, F-35C/Super Hornet CAPs, and emerging shipboard lasers—but magazine depth and saturation remain worries.
-If a flat-top were lost, the Pentagon would face an immediate choice between escalation and restraint. Deterrence now hinges on resilient forces, longer-range kill chains, and realistic worst-case planning.
Chinese Military Officers Are Threatening to Sink American Aircraft Carriers
China has three aircraft carriers and a fourth on the way that will likely be nuclear-powered.
As a result, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has its chest puffed out and its head held high.
They now have the naval assets to challenge the United States in the Indo-Pacific and dominate countries in their region.
The Chinese carriers have been a source of national pride and a morale boost for individual sailors.
The country’s maritime defense industry can build ships with the best of them, and capital vessels like aircraft carriers are becoming the best way for China to create deterrence and combat power on the high seas.
The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) completes the first scheduled explosive event of Full Ship Shock Trials while underway in the Atlantic Ocean, June 18, 2021. The U.S. Navy conducts shock trials of new ship designs using live explosives to confirm that our warships can continue to meet demanding mission requirements under harsh conditions they might encounter in battle. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Riley B. McDowell)
This has some PLAN personnel crowing that they could create a blood bath in East Asia with heavy-duty attacks against U.S. Navy carriers.
Chinese Admiral Is Rattling the Sabers
Back in 2018, China’s Rear Admiral Luo Yuan, the deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, was talking tough.
Luo thinks the PLAN could destroy two U.S. Navy flat-tops without much effort.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” the admiral said, before revealing that such an attack on two of the U.S. Navy’s carriers would claim 10,000 lives, the Navy Times pointed out.
This Chinese Officer Makes an Astute Point
Luo is correct about the political fallout of even one American carrier getting damaged, much less sunk.
And this could lead to a loss of life that would have even President Donald Trump wondering if he should just sue for peace.
Indeed, the American public does not want any type of combat casualties during a short or protracted naval struggle.
It is not clear if the ordinary citizens in the United States would support fighting to help Taiwan during a Chinese invasion.
China is also aware that this is Trump’s last term in office, and a new U.S. Commander-in-Chief may lack the backbone to stand up to China in East Asia.
Xi Jinping’s navy knows America is wondering whether its days of air dominance during the Global War on Terror are forever over.
China Has the Military Hardware to Make America Pay
Now the Chinese have carrier-killing missiles such as the DF-17 and DF-21D. The carrier-borne fighters, like the J-15 Flying Shark, are better than advertised and can be considered 4.5-generation aircraft.
PLAN aviators get better each time they fly a sortie off an aircraft carrier. They can conduct launches and landings in bad weather and at night. So, the carrier wings have significantly improved.
China also has the correct number of escort destroyers and frigates, plus submarines, to form carrier strike groups, similar to what the United States deploys.
China Watches U.S. Carrier Operations Closely
The PLAN has learned some lessons from Yemen’s Houthis terrorists, who conducted a long struggle using anti-ship missiles and drones against U.S. carrier strike groups in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
China has determined that the U.S. Navy could run out of interceptor missiles controlled by the Aegis Weapon System.
These are difficult to produce rapidly and are expensive.
China could try to saturate the air with DF-17s and DF-21Ds, plus send loitering kamikaze drones at the American ships, hoping to overwhelm defenses.
The Americans are answering with directed energy systems whose unlimited “bursts” could cost-effectively fry incoming missiles and drones.
Still, these lasers have not yet been deployed on all escort vessels.
The Americans also have the stealthy F-35C Lightning II and the combat-proven F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to defend carrier strike groups. The Chinese would have to get lucky to damage or sink even one carrier with those airplanes flying defensive or offensive patrols.
What Happens If a Carrier Is Taken Out of Service?
But the Department of Defense must plan for such a contingency. The new National Defense Strategy will be coming out soon. The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, is responsible for this document. If I were advising Colby, I would tell him that the Navy could lose a carrier someday and that the DOD must be ready to answer the Chinese if this happened.
Just how much would the Navy react if a carrier were sunk? Would it send more carrier strike groups into the South China Sea to get vengeance? Or would the Americans choose to wait for a diplomatic resolution?
The United States has always maintained that it has the right to patrol the East and South China Seas to preserve freedom of navigation for all shipping and to maintain sea lines of communication for trade and commerce.
“International law allows us to operate here, allows us to fly here, allows us to train here, allows us to sail here, and that’s what we’re doing and we’re going to continue to do that,” Lt. Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, spokesman for the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, said last February, as the Navy Times noted.
Those are steadfast words, but China disagrees and has numerous territorial claims in the South China Sea and has even militarized some islands and reefs in its so-called First Island Chain.
The Taiwan question is always on the minds of U.S. defense planners. China reckons if could take Taipei in 100 hours with few casualties. A blockade or quarantine could also starve the Taiwanese into submission. U.S. battle planners believe that China will be ready to go for a full Taiwan invasion in 2027.
Colby is a China hawk, as is Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So far, Trump has been circumspect about his own views on a potential American intervention in Taiwan. He considers Xi Jinping a friend and a leader he can do business with, but that is more on the trade and economics side, not military.
Of course, Chinese generals and admirals have been thumbing their noses at the Americans for years. They like to pile on the rhetoric to get their military personnel and the citizenry fired up and remind the United States that the Chinese defense forces play for keeps.
I would thus take the Chinese threats to sink carriers with a grain of salt. Xi does not want war in the Indo-Pacific, but he will take Taiwan if forced to by either internal political pressure or military necessity. Until then, the Americans need a better strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
This will drive future defense acquisition needs for ships and airplanes and will help the Americans provide clear guidance to their personnel and allies. War is not coming soon, but it could undoubtedly be on the horizon, and the United States must plan for that one bad day when China could sink a carrier.
About the Author: Brent M. Eastwood
Brent M. Eastwood, PhD is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for US Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former US Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.
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