Naval modernization in China, Japan and South Korea

The first three decades of the twenty-first century are likely to be a golden age of expansion for the navies of the Asia-Pacific region. Major and middle powers, as well as smaller regional states, are growing their defence budgets and channelling extra financial resources into ambitious naval modernization programmes. According to industry analysts, this trend is likely to continue over the next 20 years. US consultancy firm AMI International, for instance, has forecast that Asia-Pacific countries will spend $108 billion on upgrading and expanding their naval forces by 2020, rising to $173 billion by 2030, thus overtaking NATO to become the second-largest source of naval spending after the United States. ¹ Crucially, as Geoffrey Till has noted, 70 per cent of future naval spending over the next 20 years will be on strategic assets: submarines, destroyers, frigates and amphibious warfare vessels including ships capable of deploying aircraft, either manned or unmanned. ² Indeed the naval spending spree currently under way is already altering the military balance of power in Asia and changing the strategic context of some of the region’s most contentious territorial and sovereignty disputes.