Flotilla of Chinese destroyers, including nearly half of its navy’s “large” destroyers, recently conducted live-fire drills in the contentious South China Sea.
China’s Southern Theater Command deployed a Type 052C guided-missile destroyer, the Haikou, along with three of the Chinese navy’s eight Type 055 (Renhai-class) destroyers, the Xianyang, Zunyi, and Yan’an, to the sea for six days of training.
The six days of round-the-clock drills, which included air-to-sea strikes, anti-submarine tasks, and air defense, came amid simmering tensions in the oil- and gas-rich South China Sea, through which one-fifth of global trade is estimated to pass each year.
Displacing 12,000 tons and 590 feet in length, the Type 055s are faster, better-armed, and boast more-advanced sensor systems than older Type 052s. Dubbed “large destroyers” by Beijing, they are slightly bigger than the U.S. Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers and serve as the main escorts of China’s aircraft carriers.
It was the first time that three Type 055s, also known as Renhai-class destroyers, had participated in an exercise together, according to one anonymous Chinese military expert cited by state-run.
The outlet cited the expert as saying the exercise was “likely a routine one that is not targeted at any third party.”
“But, coming at a time when the Philippines has been engaged in continuous provocation on Chinese islands and reefs in the South China Sea under the instigation of the U.S., it in effect served as a deterrence,”.
