PLA Navy Better Than Soviet But Still Has Weaknesses
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O'Rourke said one advantage of the PLA Navy is that it possesses anti-ship ballistic missiles with the capability to strike moving ships at sea, which the Soviet Union did not. The expert gave his view however that China is only able to establish a regional navy with limited global capability as it has not resolved the Taiwan issue.
The Pentagon highlighted two weaknesses of the PLA Navy in launching anti-access or area-denial tactics against the US Navy in a potential Taiwan Strait crisis.
Claiming China's current inability to place Taiwan under its control in a short period of time, O'Rourke said the PLA will certainly pay more attention to increasing its coastal defense capability. While conceding that the Chinese navy is now conducting anti-piracy or non-combatant evacuation operations overseas, O'Rourke said nonetheless that it is still unlikely that the PLA Navy would feel comfortable confronting the US Navy more than 1,000 miles from the China coast.
