On September 5, 2019, at the Wuhan shipyards of the Chinese CSIC group, the ceremony of laying the keel of the submarine S26T intended for the Thai naval forces. This building, which must be delivered in 2021, will be the first submersible in the Thai fleet, also one of the largest in the South Pacific theater. It was also an opportunity for the Chief of Staff of the Thai Navy to sign a contract for the acquisition of a Type 071E assault ship, also built by the Chinese group. The Thai Navy, which is already implementing 5 Chinese-built 2000-ton Type 053HT frigates, and 2 S25T frigates of 3000 tonnes built in partnership with China, therefore seems to be amplifying its shift towards Chinese equipment, at least in the naval field, notwithstanding the two DW3000F frigates recently acquired from South Korea.
But, if relations between Beijing and Bangkok are indeed rather good, we cannot, as is sometimes the case, explain these decisions by questions of allegiance to the supervisory power. Indeed, the choice of the Chinese model was made following a competition between, in 2017, the Scorpene submarines of Naval Group, type 209 of TKMS, Russian Project 636 Kilo and DW1400T of South Korean Daewoo , to a 2600 ton model derived from the Chinese Type 039A. However, the Chinese submersible presented, according to the Thai authorities, the best performance-price ratio of the competition, it is true helped by a price of only $430 million, very widely spread, and the integration of numerous complementary services, and often very expensive, such as crew training for 3 years, and 2 years of warranty on the building itself. In addition, the Type 039A from which the S26T is derived offers high-performance anaerobic propulsion, allowing a 21-day submerged patrol, and has shown great reliability.
The surprise decision to order an LPD Type 071E (E for Export) probably stems from similar thinking, although the conditions surrounding this contract are not yet clearly known. However, it would seem that the price proposed by China defies all competition, since it would be around $200 million for a 210 meter, 25.000 ton vessel, capable of handling 4 helicopters including 2 heavy ones, and of putting on land up to 4 companies of amphibious assault forces, or 800 men, with their rolling equipment. This is, for comparison, 3 times cheaper than the Naval Group Mistral PHAs sold to Egypt which, if they can use 16 helicopters of different types, have a significantly higher payload and projection capacity. similar. Here again, the Chinese offer is certainly accompanied by extremely favorable settlement conditions, and several related service offers. Let us recall, in the same order of magnitude, China's offer to Pakistan for the acquisition of 4 Type 054A frigates at a price of $160 million per unit, a price lower than many lighter and less efficient European corvettes.
These offers of Chinese ships, combining an unbeatable price and services and payment conditions inaccessible to Western groups, foreshadow the Chinese strategy of taking control of the global military shipbuilding market. Faced with such differences in prices and services, even European quality, although it is significantly superior to that of Chinese buildings, will not stand up to such divisive arguments for long. European shipyards, whose survival depends on their ability to find export markets, will in fact, very probably, have to face the rapid decline in the addressable global market, especially as other countries, such as Turkey and South Korea are also investing in this market with serious technological and political arguments, and that both Russia and the United States seem determined to regain the market shares lost over the past two decades.
Regardless, China is now positioning itself, and without haste, as a major player in the global military naval industry, and intends to take control of a major part of it in the years to come.