I could buy 1,000 freighters and have more ships and tonnage than the US Navy. I'm not sure what the metric is - firepower per square km of ocean? Maybe there is no metric for this question.
But you are using number of ships and tonnage, not me, and need to establish what they mean.
Tonnage _IS_ firepower, and a chunk of those ships are Chinese Stealth Destroyers that avoid RADAR.
Modern ship battles aren't fought with guns. The fight is with missiles, or airplanes that shoot missiles. Having more tons (aka: missiles) than the other side is a huge advantage.
Capital ships have some benefit of efficiency. But China has the benefit of only being a few hundred miles away from Taiwan, and also their Airforce (Its US Aircraft Carriers vs mostly ground-aircraft), and also Chinese Missle Force, which can use the entire Chinese Highway system to reposition themselves.
And unless the US Marines decide to make a landing in China to attack the Chinese Missile and/or Chinese Air Force, they can fire upon the US Navy with impunity.
That's not my undertanding. Again, freighters, or if you like, WWII warships could easily provide more tonnage, but not have even close to the firepower (or protection or mobility). Could you provide something to support your claim about tonnage and firepower?
Chinese Navy has more Destroyers (by weight) than the US Navy has ships (by weight).
Also, because the Chinese strategy is a mass of smaller ships, they also outnumber us on a ship by ship basis. USA strategy is around capital ships like Carriers.
There hasn't been a large scale sea battle since WW2. No one really knows how these two contrasting strategies will end, or who has the advantage.
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I think the combined US Navy + Taiwan Navy still outnumbers China though (both by weight and by ships). It's still a difficult road for China, but they are making more ships than us and will outnumber the combined fleets over the next few years.
I read a lot of foreign policy and also defense expertise. Nobody talks about tonnage this way or connects it to firepower, that I've seen. They talk about capability, for example.
I've given examples of warships with tonnage but not power. I don't see any support for your claim.
> USA strategy is around capital ships like Carriers.
The US explicitly left this strategy behind, several years ago.
Don't forget, USA has lots of missions around the world. China on the other hand, can basically solely focus on Taiwan. Fortunately, Taiwan isn't exactly a pushover (they've got some pretty nice defenses), but Taiwan will absolutely be reliant upon USA (especially our Navy) for defense.
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As far as "capabilities", you know that the USA has no stealth destroyers, or ship-based hypersonic missiles. Remember that Chinese hypersonics can be launched on mobile platforms, meaning every single highway in China within 3000km of Taiwan is a potential hypersonic launch point. And remember that every single Chinese Air Force base will also be in play.
I don't think China will be able to take, say... Hawaii or Guam. My discussion points are hyper-focused upon Taiwan, a particular geographical region that China has _HUGE_ advantages in... while the USA has many disadvantages. Our Navy will only be supplied from Japanese / Philippines (reasonably close, but also small islands that just don't have the capability like Chinese rail or Chinese Highways / Docks will have).
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Worst: USA's "disadvantage" position will only be for a short timeframe. Our upgrade schedule for our ships is public. The world knows that USA's next generation ships / Navy is coming in the years 2030+ or so, which means China has a short... few year window... where they will be stronger / more capable than us.
The political implications are obvious. It is in the best interest of China to strike when their advantage is maximized. IE: Chinese latest-generation ships roll off their dry-docks into service... but before the USA upgrades our Navy in 2030s.
If China chooses peace (and I hope they do), they will lose the opportunity of a lifetime. US Navy obviously will outmatch the Chinese Navy in 2030s and onwards.
Is there a particular metric you'd rather use? In both number of ships, and tons, China leads over us. US only wins in capital ships now.