The Japanese Ministry of Defence reported that the Chinese language Individuals’s Liberation Army Navy deployed the Sort 052C destroyer Changchun to sail between Okinawa Island and Miyako Island, as a part of operations beneath the Justice Mission 2025 workouts which have simulated advanced joint fight operations across the Taiwan Strait. The Changchun was accompanied by two Sort 054A class frigates and a Vishnya class intelligence gathering ship, whereas within the air H-6K bombers, two J-16 fighters, two Y-9 reconnaissance plane, and two fighters of an unconfirmed second sort flew between the 2 islands. In distinction to China’s fashionable Sort 052D and Sort 055 class multirole destroyers, the Sort 052C is closely specialised in air defence roles, with its deployment anticipated to have precipitated considerably much less concern in Japan than different newer ships.
The Sort 052C is one in all China’s older and fewer succesful destroyer courses, and noticed six constructed from 2002 to 2015, earlier than shipyards transitioned to development of the considerably extra superior Sort 052D. This system performed an vital position in advancing Chinese language navy shipbuilding capabilities and applied sciences, in addition to these related to lengthy vary air defence. The ship class was developed in parallel to work on extra superior variants of the HQ-9 lengthy vary air defence system. Every Sort 052C class destroyer deploys 48 vertical launch cells for HHQ-9 surface-to-air missiles, a navalised variant of the HQ-9. This compares poorly to the Sort 052D class, which regardless of being simply seven p.c bigger, integrates 64 venial launch cells, whereas the Navy’s most succesful destroyer class the Sort 055 integrates 112 launch cells.
HHQ-9 missiles are carried on eight revolver-type launchers, every of which carries six missiles. The ship’s sensor suite offered a revolutionary enchancment in situational consciousness in comparison with prior Chinese language air defence destroyers, with every integrating six complementary sorts of radars, together with the massive Sort 346 air search and hearth management radar. The ships have a negligible offensive armament of eight launchers for comparatively small YJ-62 subsonic anti-ship cruise missiles. The choice to deploy the Sort 052C, reasonably than extra superior destroyer sorts with offensive cruise and ballistic missile strike capabilities, might have been meant to sign to Japan an intent to keep away from escalation and minimise tensions.
Tensions between China and Japan beforehand flared in early December after newly appointed Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, threatened to intervene militarily within the ongoing battle between the Individuals’s Republic of China on the Chinese language mainland, and the Republic of China primarily based on Taiwan Island, which have for many years remained in a state of civil warfare. This led Beijing to reply by deploying a service strike group led by a Sort 055 and two Sort 052D class destroyers for workouts close to Japanese territory, with the superior capabilities demonstrated reportedly having precipitated main concern within the Japanese navy management. The Navy’s fleet of its newest destroyer courses has continued to develop quickly, with seven Sort 052D class ships having been commissioned in 2025, whereas the primary Sort 055 destroyers of a second manufacturing batch are anticipated to be commissioned in 2026.
