US advisory panel warns China is gaining in undersea warfare

A key congressional advisory panel issued a warning on Monday about China’s rapidly advancing maritime capabilities and urged the Pentagon to maintain its undersea “superiority”, underscoring growing friction in US-China relations weeks ahead of a high-stakes summit next month. China has invested heavily in submarines, undersea cables and sea-floor mining, potentially undercutting the US lead in undersea warfare, commissioners and witnesses said at a hearing of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). “We must ensure this domain remains a source of strength and deterrence, not vulnerability,” said USCC chair Randall Schriver. While the US retains significant advantages as a maritime power, its position and advantages could be eroded as US strategic competition with China intensifies, he added. The USCC is an independent panel established by Congress in 2000 to advise lawmakers on the national security implications of the US-China trade and economic relationship. The Monday hearing called on witnesses from the US Navy and Washington-based think tanks to elaborate on China’s narrowing gap with the US in undersea capabilities. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has continuously modernised both its nuclear-powered and conventional submarine forces, according to Naval Submarine Forces commander Richard Seif. The country’s new SHANG III and Type 095 nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines, for instance, are “formidable” vessels that represent “significant advances” in capabilities, and pose a “multifaceted threat” to the US and its interests in the Indo-Pacific, Seif said in his testimony. Mike Brookes, commander at the Office of Naval Intelligence, also noted China’s “striking” domestic submarine production capacity. By 2035, continued expansion could allow China to produce around 80 submarines, half of those nuclear-powered. “China understands it is behind and is looking for every advantage to erode that lead that we have,” Brookes said at the hearing. Seif recommended that the US expand its submarine capacity and readiness by increasing production of new submarines and maintaining existing ones to ensure that they are “combat surge ready”. Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US, said that “the US’s long-standing hype about the ‘China threat’ is nothing more than an excuse to maintain its hegemony”, and that China is “firmly committed to being a force for peace, stability and progress in the world”. He added that China hopes that the US could “inject more stability factors into the development of China-US relations instead of setting up obstacles”. Witnesses also called attention to China’s progress in its unmanned underwater vehicles as well as quantum sensing technology, which is used to detect and track submarines. “I’m extremely concerned about the way that Chinese advances in two categories, the first, uncrewed underwater vessels, and the second, their transparent oceans initiative, or expansions in sensing, [which] could reshape the naval balance of power in the Indo-Pacific,” said Michael Horowitz, director of Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania. China’s gap with the US in the use of AI and quantum technologies in submarines is unclear, but the US cannot risk falling behind, according to Seif. “I think that it’s a race, and we’re not sure where we are in the race other than the fact that they’re putting a tremendous amount of investment toward it,” he said. “And if we’re unable to match or unwilling to match, then we put ourselves at a disadvantage.” Witnesses also flagged China’s deployment of undersea cables and its efforts to tap seabed minerals as potential threats to US security. Jason Hsu, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, warned that mainland China could cripple Taiwan by targeting its undersea internet cables, and said that the US has a “narrowing window” to strengthen deterrence against what Taiwan calls mainland China’s “grey zone” tactics. Grey-zone tactics refer to campaigns aimed at undermining defences without triggering a full-scale war by employing, for example, political meddling and cyberattacks. Taiwan has repeatedly accused Beijing of conducting such “grey-zone provocations”. “If China were to invade tomorrow, they could just cut off three cable clusters, and that will plunge the island into complete darkness,” Hsu said. Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force. The undersea domain is shaping up to be an important field of geopolitical competition, according to witnesses. This comes as the US scrambles to ensure its access to critical minerals after Beijing last year restricted rare earth exports in response to US President Donald Trump’s escalated trade war. Seaver Wang, director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, said on Monday that exploring sea floor minerals could enhance US supply chain security for four critical minerals including nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper. “The sea floor minerals sector may emerge as a new dimension in which the US and China compete to exert geopolitical influence, and assert de facto control over ocean regions and sea lines of communication,” Wang said. The USCC last month called for the Trump administration to convene a leaders’ summit among the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which includes Australia, Japan and India, to increase US leverage for the meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing at the end of March. That followed its 2025 annual report published in November that suggested the US establish a “consolidated economic statecraft entity” to address China’s technology challenge.

US advisory panel warns China is gaining in undersea warfare

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Commission urges Pentagon to preserve underwater edge as Beijing expands submarines, unmanned systems and seabed ambitions

Commission urges Pentagon to preserve underwater edge as Beijing expands submarines, unmanned systems and seabed ambitions