US Navy Has Better Ships Than China but Falls Behind in Numbers: Navy Secretary
Udumbara
The U.S. Navy continues to operate technologically superior warships, but its overall fleet size is putting U.S. maritime dominance at risk in the face of China’s rapid naval expansion, Navy Secretary John Phelan said.
“With their naval fleet nearing 400 ships, China’s goal is not the defense of its homeland only,” he said. “It is the forward projection of power and influence in the Indo-Pacific.”
Phelan did not paint a totally bleak picture of the United States’ naval position. When asked by Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) how quickly China’s navy is expanding and how large it could become, Phelan responded that while the trajectory is hard to predict, the United States still holds a qualitative edge.
“Our ships are far superior to their ships,” he told Fallon. “I think the Chinese strategies are to overwhelm with numbers. We are a much better force. We are much better-trained sailors and Marines. So I think it’s what we pick and what we have.
“You could argue to some extent that the more they build, given the speed ... [of] technology and what we’ve seen in some of these other conflicts, [it] could at some point become a disadvantage.”
China is also outpacing the United States in commercial shipbuilding. Today, Chinese-built vessels make up the majority of the fleets operated by the world’s largest shipping companies, and China itself commands nearly one-fifth of the global commercial shipping fleet. By contrast, the U.S. shipbuilding industry has steadily declined over the past decades and now accounts for less than 1 percent of global output.
“We are too far behind,” Phelan said. “There’s a stat that ... the Chinese build more ships in a year than we have since World War II.”
Phelan also addressed concerns over the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget request, which reportedly does not request new Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in its base budget. A reconciliation bill that is being considered in Congress includes two destroyers, but those are supposed to supplement, not replace, the Navy’s goal of buying at least two destroyers every year.
This issue was raised by Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), whose constituents include those working at the Navy’s primary contractors for builders: General Dynamics Bath Iron Works of Maine and Ingalls Shipbuilding of Mississippi. Phelan reassured them that shipyard capacity would remain fully used in the coming years.
“I have more ships than our shipyards can handle for the next 10 years—whether it’s a destroyer, a tanker, an oiler, or a submarine,” he told Golden. “So, I am not worried about the demand signal we have. It’s about getting the workers and getting them trained there, and incentivizing the private sector to help us. This is really going to be a whole-of-government approach.”
The hearing came after China deployed two aircraft carriers with escorts beyond the first island chain, an arc of islands stretching from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines to Indonesia. It is traditionally seen as the first defensive line for the United States and its allies, and the first barrier China would have to breach to project power into the wider Pacific.
Only 15 countries in the world own aircraft carriers, and even fewer can deploy two at once with full escort. While the Liaoning and the Shandong, both based on a modified Soviet Kuznetsov-class design, are not considered the most capable, their coordinated operations show China’s growing naval reach beyond its immediate coastal waters.
Adding to that capability is China’s third and most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, which launched in June 2022 and began sea trials about a year later. The ship is equipped with electromagnetic catapults, a leap forward in Chinese naval aviation.
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