Backgrounder: Brief history of China's People's Liberation Army Navy
- Source: Xinhua
- [10:20 April 16 2009]
A number of new conventionally-powered and nuclear submarines equipped with ultra-long wave communication system, tactical software and automated command systems and intelligent and precision-guided torpedoes were put into service of the PLAN after2000.
The new submarines have lower noise levels, and possess improved capabilities for underwater survival and defense penetration.
*2003 -- The PLAN and Pakistani naval forces conducted a joint search and rescue exercise off the coast of Shanghai in the East China Sea in October 2003. It was the first time Chinese naval forces held a joint exercise with a foreign counterpart since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
* 2004 -- The PLAN and French naval forces held their first joint military exercise off the coast of Qingdao in eastern China.
* 2005 -- China and Russia held their first joint military exercises, code-named Peace Mission 2005. The one-week maneuvers, which involved 10,000 troops from the two countries, started in Vladivostok in Russia's Far East and later moved to east China's Shandong Peninsula.
The PLAN also held joint military search and rescue exercises with Pakistani, Indian and Thai naval forces in 2005. It was the first time the PLAN took part in a joint military exercise in overseas waters.
* 2008 -- A three-ship flotilla, destroyers Wuhan and Haikou, and the supply ship Weishanhu, set sail to the Gulf of Aden on Dec. 26, 2008 for anti-piracy missions. The flotilla had escorted more than 100 ships off the Somali coast by April this year.
* 2009 - The PLAN's destroyer Guangzhou took part in the ten-day "Peace 09" military exercise at the Arabia Sea off the southern Pakistani port of Karachi in March.
The PLAN deployed a second flotilla consisting of the destroyer Shenzhen and the frigate Huangshan to the Gulf of Aden on April 2,2009. The supply ship Weishanhu, part of the first flotilla, would remain in the Gulf.
* Currently -- China now boasts dozens of squadrons of destroyers, landing ships, and supporting ships in its three fleets. The PLAN has several hundreds of combat ships larger than frigates, with a total tonnage five times as much as that in the 1980s. The number and tonnage of the PLAN's submarines are also dozens of times more than the early PLAN.