China’s Destroyer Fleet Overtaking the U.S. Navy: 59 Destroyers of the Latest Generation Laid Down

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy is scheduled to expand its fleet of destroyers from its latest generation of vessels to 59, after passing a landmark 45 ships of the modern Type 052D class and Type 055 class in service in late May with the commissioning of the 35th Type 052D class destroyer Tongchuan. Beyond the first 35 Type 052D class ships, a further eight are currently under construction, which will bring the fleet up to 43 ships. Following the commissioning of the ninth and tenth Type 055 class destroyers into service in March 2026, a further six are reported to be under construction, which will expand the fleet to 16 ships. The Type 052D and Type 055 are the first Chinese destroyer classes to be procured in large numbers, with their designs representing the cultivation of decades of work refining prior designs that were produced in much more limited numbers. 

The Type 055 and Type 052D have been produced as part of a high-low combination a force structure concept, with the 13,000 Type 055 class ships serving as the high-end component, while the Type 052D forms the lower-cost backbone of the surface fleet. This approach allows China to maximise combat capability without bearing the enormous cost of building a fleet comprised entirely of Type 055 class vessels. Improving on the much less versatile revolver-style vertical launch systems seen on previous generations of destroyers, the Type 052D and the Type 055 class use a common universal canister-based vertical launch system, integrating 64 and 112 cells respectively. These can integrate  a much wider range of weapons, including HHQ-9 long-range surface-to-air missiles, YJ-18 anti-ship cruise missiles, YJ-100 land-attack cruise missiles, YJ-20 anti-ship ballistic missiles, and anti-submarine rocket torpedoes.

Even if no new destroyers are laid down, which is highly unlikely, the completion of the remaining Type 052D and Type 055 class ships that have begun construction will place China on a fully peer level with the United States in terms of the size of its fleet. Alongside the 59 ships of the latest generation, the People’s Liberation Army Navy also fields 17 older destroyers from the Type 052C, Type 052B, Type 051C, Type 051B, Type 052, and Russian-built Soveremenny class destroyers, which if maintained in service would provide a total fleet size of 76 destroyers. This would place the Navy on a fully peer level with the U.S. Navy in terms of the size of its destroyer fleet, which is a feat no country has come close to achieving since the Second World War. 

The Chinese destroyer fleet is expected to benefit from a fast growing numerical advantage, as Chinese shipyards lay down new Type 052D and Type 055 class ships at rates of over six per year, while U.S. shipyards have laid down destroyers at a rate of 1.6 per year and have long suffered from major production bottlenecks. This places the U.S. behind even China’s neighbour North Korea in its destroyer production rates. The Chinese advantage is not only numerical, but also qualitative, with the U.S. Arleigh Burke class being a Cold War era design that lacks advanced stealth capabilities and has increasingly been pushed to its limits in its capacity for further modernisation. Chinese destroyers are thus in most respects far more capable, with the Type 055 in particular having no peer level competitors in the Western world. The future of plans in the U.S. to develop a next generation destroyer to respond to the Type 055 program under the DDG(X) program remain highly uncertain, while the rate of modernisation of Chinese destroyers as new weapons and subsystems are integrated has been far faster.