The Chinese military may be building a new type of resupply ship, according newly surfaced photos, as the country’s navy seeks to shore up its ocean-going capabilities.
The half-finished People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ship was photographed anchored at a harbour, identified as the Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI), in about two dozen pictures published at the weekend on cjdby.net, an influential military forum in China.
The website is known as an unofficial outlet of rare images of some of the PLA’s latest weapons and caters to a large audience of military enthusiasts.
In the past, the website was among the first to leak images of China's stealth fighter J-20, giving the public a rare glimpse of the PLA’s latest machinery. The Chinese military generally keeps a very tight control over information on its hardware development.
Photos of the new, unidentified PLA ship were taken from afar but still revealed some telling clues.