China's recent move to equip amphibious warfare ships with laser weapons marks a bold leap in China's naval power, reflects a global shift toward energy-based defense and raises tensions in the Pacific.
This month, The War Zone reported that China has equipped its Type 071 amphibious transport dock with a new laser weapons system.
The War Zone reports that the vessel, believed to be the Simingshan with hull number 986, was spotted with the weapon mounted just behind the 76mm cannon on its bow, hidden under a domed cover when not in use.
The report said the move reflects efforts by the United States and other countries to integrate directed-energy weapons onto their warships, as seen with the laser weapon system demonstrator aboard the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Portland.
China's laser system, details of which have not been released, is expected to bolster defenses against swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles and small boats and may include a dazzler capability to blind sensors and tracking devices, according to the report.
The Warzone said the Type 071 vessels, which are comparable to the US San Antonio-class, are serving as a testing platform for laser weapons, signaling China's growing interest in improving its naval warfare technology.
China has used nonlethal laser weapons in the South China Sea before, including when Chinese maritime law enforcement officials used them against Philippine military forces in a series of naval standoffs in June, shining a blinding laser at Philippine military personnel who were recording the encounters.
In February 2023, Asia Times reported that the Philippines accused the Philippine Coast Guard vessel BRP Malapascua of shining a military-grade laser on it during a resupply mission to the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea.
The incident, which left the Philippine crew temporarily blinded, came shortly after the Philippines granted the US more comprehensive access to its military bases. China's Foreign Ministry denied shining a laser on the BRP Malapascua, saying the Philippine ship had entered its waters without authorization.
These actions are in line with China's strategic “war without gunsmoke” aimed at undermining allies' confidence in U.S. resolve and expanding China's positional advantage in the region.
China may have learned lessons from the Ukraine war and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea by equipping its Type 071 amphibious transport dock with new laser weapons.
In Ukraine, unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) are inflicting heavy damage on Russia's Black Sea Fleet, while the Houthi arsenal of ballistic missiles and suicide drones is straining U.S. and allied missile interceptor stockpiles.
In April 2024, Asia Times reported that Taiwan is learning from Ukraine's naval success and expanding its production of USVs to counter potential Chinese aggression. Taiwan's strategic shift toward asymmetric drone warfare is inspired, at least in part, by Ukraine's effective use of USVs against Russian naval assets in the Black Sea.
Taiwan's National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has launched a $25 million USV development program to begin production of at least 200 USVs by 2026.
Costing around $250,000 each, these USVs are designed for suicide attacks against People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) ships and can be remotely controlled from up to 70 kilometers away.
Taiwan may be getting a boost from the United States in expanding its USV production. Asia Times reported in February 2024 that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is actively seeking design proposals for a new fleet of low-cost, highly autonomous drone boats, known as the Production Ready Inexpensive Maritime Expeditionary (PRIME) small unmanned surface vessel (SUSV) project.
The plan is aimed at enhancing expeditionary maritime capabilities in light of strategic insights gained from the war in Ukraine. The proposed SUSV is expected to achieve a range of 926-1,852 km, a payload capacity of 450 kg and a top speed of more than 35 knots.
They must also be able to navigate autonomously in GPS-free environments and have resilient supply chains to manufacture their critical components.
The PRIME project highlights the importance of collaborative autonomy and the ability to integrate a range of modular payloads, sensors and effectors.
In the context of a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait, these unmanned vessels could significantly enhance the capabilities of Taiwan and foreign allies and partners, including the Philippines, and provide a cost-effective solution to asymmetric naval warfare.
Beyond U.S. warships, Taiwan's new loitering weapons may have given China urgency to develop laser weapons as a cost-effective countermeasure, given the unsustainability of using multi-million dollar interceptor missiles against suicide drones that cost thousands of dollars apiece.
This month, The Aviationist reported that Taiwan plans to deploy the Jianxiang loitering weapon in a large-scale “precision live-fire exercise” near Jiupeng Air Base in Taiwan's Pingtung County from Aug. 20 to 22. This marks the first combat use of the domestically developed drone, which was announced in 2019 and is similar to Israel's IAI Harpy, according to The Aviationist.
Designed to attack enemy missile and radar sites, the Chiang Shan comes in two versions: an anti-radar weapon and a decoy, according to Aviation List.
According to the report, the drones will have a range of 1,000 kilometers, a top speed of 600 kilometers per hour and a flight time of five hours, can navigate autonomously to pre-determined waypoints and will be launched from a 12-cell trailer-mounted launcher.
In addition to the Jianxiang, the United States had approved the sale of the Ukrainian combat-tested Switchblade 300 and Anduril Altius 600M loitering weapons to Taiwan, Asia Times reported in June 2024.
In contrast to China's progress in using and developing laser weapons, Defense One reported this month that the U.S. Navy is working to bolster its air defenses with pure energy weapons. But Defense One said U.S. progress is hampered by the lack of a commercial market for lasers powerful enough.
The biggest obstacle is the development of lasers that can shoot down missiles from miles away, but the technology is not driven by commercial demand: As offensive missiles and drones become more affordable and lethal, the urgency for cost-effective, flexible defenses grows, the report said.
Defense One notes that while the U.S. Navy has fielded experimental lasers such as the Naval Optical Dazzle Countermeasure (ODIN) and the 120-kilowatt High Energy Laser for Optical Dazzle Surveillance Integrated (HELIOS), their effectiveness against fast-moving weapons and non-optical sensor weapons remains limited.
The report said the collaboration between US defense contractor Lockheed Martin and the Office of the Secretary of Defense aims to test and develop prototypes of up to 500 kilowatts, but noted that integrating these systems into a layered defense strategy would be difficult.
Defense One says the U.S. is testing individual directed-energy devices on ships in an effort to establish a multi-system defense in the coming years, but the magazine notes that the U.S. military continues to rely on expensive missiles to counter cheap drones, highlighting the need for more efficient solutions.
