The US Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence released its first unclassified report on China’s maritime forces in six years entitled: “The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the 21st Century,” The report's focus is on the PLA Navy (PLAN) and the China Coast Guard. By 2020, the Office of Naval Intelligence sees China’s maritime forces on a trajectory of major improvement through hardware acquisition and accrual of operational proficiency. It notes that Chinese shipbuilding capabilities and resources will allow both forces to replace more than 60 old ships with new, far more capable ones in 2015 as was done in 2014. It revealed that the PLAN has 26 destroyers, 52 frigates, 20 corvettes, 85 missile patrol craft, 56 amphibious vessels, 42 mine warfare ships, more than 50 major auxiliaries, and more than 400 minor auxiliaries, but adds that most noteworthy is the multi-mission capability of a number of ships. 

The East and South China Seas have: twenty Jiangdao-class patrol corvettes, with 10-40 additional hulls anticipated. The PLAN is also introducing UAVs. The Camcopter S-100 UAV has already been deployed and a variety of indigenous systems are likely to follow soon.

The Office of Naval Intelligence also says that China can deploy heretofore publicly-unknown remote-controllable Wonang-class inshore minesweepers. China has four Dongdiao-class intelligence collection ships, which support growing surveillance operations in the Western Pacific sand three cutting-edge Dalao-class submarine rescue ships which augment China's undersea warfare ability . 

Also, for the first time a U.S. government source has confirmed that Chinese ships and submarines have deployed the potent new-generation supersonic YJ-18 anti-ship cruise missile. Previously designated the CH-SS-NX-13 by the US Department of Defense, it is apparently a copy of the 3M54E Klub (SS-N-27B export variant), with which Russian Kilo-class 636M subs are equipped. Like the Klub, the sea-skimming YJ-18’s high speed and terminal trajectory make it extremely difficult for air defense systems of ships to thwart.