The stakes in the South China Sea (SCS) are apparently reaching down to the murky depths of this contentious waterway as Beijing readies its undersea surveillance network to consolidate its presence in the region.
The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), one of China’s top shipbuilding and defence groups that builds virtually all People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships, has been laying a network of ship and subsurface sensors that it calls the ‘Underwater Great Wall Project’ that is designed to gain Beijing an enormous undersea warfare advantage. Estimated to be close to completion, the project will help China push its effective control zone and track all submarine, surface and aerial activity in the littoral. CSSC is also flaunting the system as “a package solution” in terms of underwater environment monitoring and collection, real-time location, tracing of surface and underwater targets, warning of seaquakes, tsunamis and other disasters, as well as for garnering research data on marine life and geology.
Project details were made available at a CSSC booth at a public exhibition in China late last year, with IHS Jane’s managing to have them translated from a government official. According to a recent IHS Jane’s report, the system proposed by CSSC will likely be obtained by PLAN and may also be offered for export…Click HERE to read full article.
