Beijing: In a major setback for China's weapons programme, one of its newest nuclear-power attack submarines sank several months ago, confirmed two US officials. The incident occurred at a shipyard near Wuhan in late May or early June and the government has scrambled to cover up the incident.
The Zhou-class vessel that sank is the first of a new class of Chinese nuclear-powered submarines and features a distinctive X-shaped stern, which is designed to make the vessel more manoeuvrable, according to The Wall Street Journal. It was built by China State Shipbuilding Corporation, a state-owned company and was observed alongside a pier on the Yangtze River when it was undergoing its final equipping before going to sea.
After the sinking of the submarine, large floating cranes arrived in early June to salvage it from the river bid, according to satellite pictures of the site and the issue was covered up in the country. Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation think tank and a retired US Navy nuclear submarine officer, called it a "significant" development.
Corruption in China's defence industry
"It's not surprising that the PLA Navy would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pierside," a senior US official told the Wall Street Journal. "In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA's internal accountability and oversight of China's defence industry, which has long been plagued by corruption."
Allegations of corruption within China’s defence industrial base in 2023 led to leadership change and renewed calls for political loyalty among industry chiefs. Chinese President Xi Jinping himself has talked about "deep-seated problems" within the People's Liberation Army amid signs that his iron grip on power may be slipping.
"The gun barrels should always be in the hands of those who are loyal and reliable to the party, and there must be no place for corrupt elements to hide in the military," Xi said in July. He also launched a sweeping anti-corruption drive that has targeted the military with dozens of top generals either sacked or investigated in the last 10 years.
How did the submarine mishap come to light?
The first public indication that something was amiss at the shipyard near Wuhan came in the summer when Thomas Shugart, a former US submarine officer and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, wrote a series of social media posts noting the unusual activity of the floating cranes, which was captured by commercial satellite imagery.
Shugart surmised that there might have been an incident that involved a new type of submarine, but he didn't know at the time that it was nuclear-powered. "Can you imagine a US nuclear submarine sinking in San Diego and the government hushes it up and doesn't tell anybody about it? I mean, Holy Cow!" Shugart said in an interview this week with The Wall Street Journal.
While the submarine was salvaged, it will likely take many months before it can be put to sea. "The whole boat would be full of water," Shugart said. "You'd have to clean out all the electronics. The electric motors may need to be replaced. It would be a lot of work." He also said the risk of a nuclear leak was likely to be low as the sub hadn't ventured out to sea and its reactors were probably not operating at a high power level.
Speaking in Taipei on Friday, Taiwan Defence Minister Wellington Koo said authorities "have a grasp of the situation through multiple intelligence and surveillance methods", but did not elaborate. A series of satellite images from Planet Labs from June appear to show cranes at the Wuchang shipyard, where the submarine would have been docked.
It is not known if there were any casualties – or if the submarine had any nuclear fuel onboard at the time, although experts have deemed that likely. As of 2022, China had six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines, according to a Pentagon report on China’s military. That submarine force is expected to grow to 65 by 2025 and 80 by 2035, the US defence department has said.
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