China Prepares Its 172,000 Civilian Ships for War

A second article going into further detail related to a post from last week.

 

Chinese civilian shipbuilders have to ensure that their vessels can be used by the PLAN during times of ‘crisis’.

As my colleague Shannon Tiezzi reported a while back, the Chinese government has approved a plan to ensure that civilian vessels can support military operations of China’s maritime forces in the event of a crisis.

While the recruitment of civilian maritime assets for military purposes is not unusual (e.g., the Queen Elizabeth 2 transported the main British land fighting force to the Falkland Islands during the 1982 Falklands War), the recent announcement is nevertheless a sign of the growing aspirations of Chinese naval planners in developing  naval expeditionary warfare capabilities.