China operates the world’s largest navy by ship hulls and has combat ships — including surface warships and submarines — acquired from Russia decades ago that have helped the country build naval power capable of challenging the United States.
While Russian legacy systems remain a relevant part of the rapidly growing Chinese fleet, Alex Happinesssaid an Australia-based analyst specializing in the People’s Liberation Army Navy Newsweek they will likely disappear from PLAN service within the next decade or two, “depending on how long certain units remain in service.”
Newsweek has contacted the Chinese Ministry of Defense via email for comment. The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Why it matters
China and Russia have formed what Russian President Vladimir Putin once called a no-holds-barred partnership, with both sides supporting each other — diplomatically and militarily — on issues such as the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and tensions in the Taiwan Strait, while joining forces to counter U.S.-led alliances in Europe and Asia.
As part of efforts to build a ‘world-class’ military aimed at supplanting the US as the world’s most powerful nation, China has undergone a naval modernization – supported by a robust shipbuilding capacity – and maintains a fleet of more than 370 ships and submarines, including three aircraft carriers, eight 10,000-ton class destroyers and 60 submarines.
Although most of China’s fleet is domestically designed, it is integrated with naval assets of Russian origin, including four Sovremenny-class destroyers and 10 Kilo-class submarines acquired in the early 1990s and 2000s, as well as the first aircraft carrier, CNS Liaoningformerly the Varyagoriginally built for the Soviet Navy.
Addressing operational needs
According to Luck, China’s initial motivation for acquiring naval platforms from Russia was primarily to quickly deploy what he described as “meaningful capabilities,” especially after relations with the West deteriorated following two major incidents: the crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989 and the Third Taiwan Crisis in 1996.
The Chinese Communist Party has long claimed Taiwan – a self-governing island – as its own, despite never having governed the area. During the 1996 crisis, when the Chinese military conducted missile exercises in the Taiwan Strait, the US sent two naval strike groups, each led by an aircraft carrier, to act as a deterrent against China.
“The Chinese Navy needed both capable platforms to credibly deter war [U.S. Navy] and underscoring their own political aspirations in the region, and a broader technological base to incorporate into future developments,” Luck shared. Newsweek.
Citing China’s domestically built Type 039A diesel-electric powered submarine as an example, Luck said this class of ships has a “more significant” Russian influence on its hull design, which can be considered a hybrid of Chinese and Russian engineering.
As for the Liaoningwhich China bought as an unfinished hull for extensive modernization, the analyst said it was used to gain fundamental expertise in designing, building and operating an aircraft carrier, a capability that China did not previously possess.
Calling this the most meaningful aspect of Russia’s technology transfer to China, Luck said it took the Chinese Navy longer to acquire operational aircraft carrier capabilities due to the significant resources and time required to achieve them.
More than ten years after the Liaoning was commissioned in 2012, the Pentagon said in its 2025 review that China wants a total of nine aircraft carriers by 2035, and plans to build six additional ships, which would be larger than its US counterpart in the Pacific, where there are currently six aircraft carriers in Japan and on the US west coast.
Scaling back the front line
As China brings more advanced domestically designed naval vessels to market, the Russian platforms are expected to be phased out. Luck said China has now surpassed Russia in certain areas, such as the overall quality and connectivity of its electronics and sensors, due to a much more robust industrial base for domestic electronics and semiconductors.
The clearest example of the transition from Russian hardware and know-how to domestic expertise is the Chinese aircraft carrier program. In the development of aircraft carrier aviation, the Chinese Navy has moved away from the ski jump design used on aviation Liaoning to catapults that can launch heavier aircraft, a key feature of CNS Fujian.
At the same time, a new generation of Chinese aircraft carriers, the J-35 fighter jet, has entered service and is expected to eventually succeed the J-15, a Chinese equivalent of the Soviet Union-designed Su-33 Flanker, according to Luck.
To maintain the operational viability of Russian hardware in its rapidly growing fleet, the Chinese Navy has adopted what the analyst called “a general practice” of applying newer technology and expertise to older units, particularly the four Sovremenny-class destroyers.
Only one of the destroyers has yet to complete a refit, the analyst said, which will include integration with more modern Chinese missiles – designed for air defense and anti-ship missions – and sensors, as well as improved command and control (C2) capabilities.
“A comprehensive modernization of these now aging destroyers appears to underscore PLAN’s desire not to compromise on numbers for their larger and more capable fighters,” Luck wrote in a Naval News article about the Chinese Navy in 2025.
What people say
Alex Luck, an Australia-based naval analyst, told us Newsweek: “China has pursued an increasingly ambitious policy over the past fifteen years to deploy indigenous capabilities, including those based significantly on the influx of Russian technology. This dynamic is also why the original Russian systems have lost most of their immediate operational significance.”
The Pentagon’s Chinese Military Power Report 2025 noted: “China’s historic military buildup has left the American homeland increasingly vulnerable. China possesses a large and growing arsenal of nuclear, maritime, long-range conventional strike, cyber and space capabilities that could directly threaten American security.”
What happens next
It remains to be seen how Russian naval platforms will transform their role in the more modernized Chinese fleet, as the East Asian power rapidly deploys new ships to expand its maritime power and project forces further across the disputed Indo-Pacific region.
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