End of an Era: China Retires Last Type 051 Destroyers After 47 Years in Service as Rapid Fleet Modernisation Continues

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy retired its last two Type 051 Class destroyers on August 28th, marking the end of an era with the first ship of the type having been commissioned 47 years ago in 1973. Over the course of the program 17 Type 051 Class ships were commissioned into PLA service, although the platforms quickly became obsolete relative to other Chinese warships after the navy rapidly modernised its surface warfare capabilities, initially largely through transfers of Soviet technologies, in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. The Type 051 was the PLA’s first ever guided missile destroyer, and although relatively light displacing just 3,700 tons they represented a leap in capabilities for Chinese shipbuilding and provided key experience in medium-endurance naval operations which would prove invaluable when China began to invest more heavily in fleet modernisation after 1997. 

At the beginning of 2020 only two Type 051 Class ships remained in PLA service of the original 17 - the heavily enhanced Type 051G Class ships Zhanjiang and Zhuhai. The ships were both launched in 1990 and commissioned the following year, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union which would provide China with access to much more advanced Soviet technologies from successor states Russian and Ukraine. The Type 051G was the last Chinese destroyer class built before this effective technological revolution took place, but benefitted from a range of advanced features including a new Type 354 3-D air and surface search radar, new YJ-8 missile launchers to replace the ageing HY-2 missiles, and new HQ-7 short range air defence systems and YU-7 lightweight torpedoes. Although the Type 051G was the most capable ship in the Chinese surface fleet when it entered service, the destroyers would quickly be outshone by the Sovremenny Class platforms provided by Russia which fielded capabilities well over a decade ahead and represented the first real peer-level challenger to the rival navies of Japan and the United States.

Although the Type 051G’s commissioning would be followed just 23 years later by the commissioning of the PLA’s first Type 052D Class destroyer, and 27 years later with the first Type 055 Class destroyer, the technological gap between the older ships and China’s newer warships is considerably more than 30 years. Where Russia’s entire destroyer fleet were laid down during the Cold War, and a significant proportion of America’s surface fleet also dates back to that period, China’s retirement of its last Cold War-era ships is but one of many indicators that its fleet modernisation efforts are being carried out at a much faster pace. The Type 055 Class ships which today form the elite of the Chinese fleet are widely considered the most capable surface combatants in the world - with eight of these having been launched as of the beginning of September 2020.

note: The PLA Navy does retain a single Type 051B Class destroyer in service, although this technology demonstrator was first commissioned in 1999 and is not considered a part of the Type 051 Class program due to its very different and much larger design despite sharing the same designation.