Following the official start of construction of the Dechong-Funan Canal in Cambodia led by China Road and Bridge last month, this month, China has made a new move in Cambodia's arms trade. According to the domestic media citing Cambodia's "Cambodia Daily" on September 5, on the 4th, Cambodian Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Mary. Socheta revealed that at the request of the Cambodian side, China will provide Cambodia with two surface ships to enhance Cambodia's ability to safeguard national security.
At the same time, Mary. Socheta also revealed the types of surface ships that China will provide to Cambodia, and it is said that the two warships that China will provide are two Type 056C frigates. The "C" of this 056C may be an acronym for Cambodia in English. Considering that the Chinese Navy, in addition to the Hong Kong garrison, has now handed over almost all the Type 056 frigates to the Chinese Coast Guard, and only the Type 056A frigates are left in the naval combat sequence, it is expected that what we will hand over to Cambodia should also be Type 056A frigates.
Considering that the anti-submarine warfare equipment on the Type 056A frigate is relatively high, and many functions may not be used by Cambodia at all, it is estimated that we will also carry out modifications before the handover and dismantle some highly sensitive ship-loading subsystems. For example, active and passive towed sonar arrays, etc., of course, these are also details. According to the Cambodian Ministry of Defense, at present, Chinese naval personnel are conducting personnel training for the Cambodian Navy in Cambodia, and the two Type 056C frigates are expected to be delivered by the end of 2025.
056 handed over by China
With the final disclosure of the news by the Cambodian Ministry of National Defense, many of the things that everyone has been speculating about this year have finally settled. Since the beginning of this year, the Chinese Navy has been squatting quietly on the pier of the Ream Naval Base in southern Cambodia with two Type 056A frigates.
Cambodian port 2 056 half-year position changes
Satellite photos taken by Western commercial satellites in May revealed this incident, and neither China nor Cambodia said anything, and the outside world talked about it a lot, some said it was normal training, some said it was foreign exchanges, and some said that China was going to build a wharf at the Ream Naval Base. Now look at the above news is nonsense, we are training Cambodian Navy personnel in the use of Type 056A frigates. After all, for the Cambodian Navy, not to mention more advanced combat ships, the Type 056 corvette is a proper large ship and advanced warship in Cambodia, and the Chinese personnel must personally lead the training, and the training time will definitely be relatively long, that is what happened.
056's sonar and shipboard equipment
After the training is completed, the instructors of the Chinese Navy can be withdrawn, and the Cambodian Navy will be able to receive and operate the two 056s on its own. The only problem is that we don't know now whether these two Type 056C frigates were handed over by the Chinese Navy as hot ships, or whether they were sailed over after they were newly built in China. The so-called hot ship transfer means that after the training, the crew of the Chinese Navy will return to China directly from other channels, and the two Type 056A frigates will be handed over to the Cambodian Navy on the spot along with all the technical materials to join the Cambodian Navy's combat sequence. Needless to say, the new construction in China is that our shipyard will build two new Type 056 frigates for Cambodia, and then transfer them to Cambodia after the outfitting and sea trials are completed in one go.
Footage from Cambodian media coverage
Considering that so far, there is no news of the construction of Type 056 frigates from shipyards in China, and if it is only for the Cambodian Navy to do training, then it is enough to send a Type 056 frigate, and the two crews can take turns to operate on the ship, and there is no need to send two ships of the same type. Therefore, the outside world is now speculating that we may have to hand over the hot ship to Cambodia, and the two Type 056A frigates sent will be directly handed over to the Cambodian side after the training of Cambodian naval personnel is completed.
The significance of Cambodian equipment 056
As for why the Chinese Navy transferred two Type 056A frigates to Cambodia, why did the Cambodian Ministry of Defense make this information public at this time? Needless to say, Big Ivan considers two factors:
Cambodian Navy
The first is that the current strength of the Cambodian Navy is too weak, and the current surface combat force does not even have ships, only two Su-205P torpedo boats inherited from the Khmer Rouge and one Type 067 small landing craft obtained from China. Therefore, even from the perspective of helping the Cambodian Navy improve its overall combat capability and better safeguard national security, it is understandable that we can help within the scope of our ability. Of course, it is useless for you to give the Cambodian Navy ships above 054A, it will not work, and it is completely enough to give some corvettes.
2 x 056
Second, I have to mention the Dechong-Funan Canal, which started construction last month, and the Dechong-Funan Canal was too obvious to us before. After the canal is completed, it will largely reshape the pattern of interests of the countries in the Mekong River basin of the Indochina Peninsula, Cambodia, Laos and other countries in the voice and proportion of interests in it, and the southern economic center of Viet Nam with Ho Chi Minh City as the core will decline in the proportion of interests. Viet Nam is now making various commotion operations and small actions one after another, largely because of this. We are trying to find ways to check and balance, but in the face of absolute power, it is not interesting to engage in these small actions, and whoever mixes with China in the Indochina Peninsula will be able to eat the cake, and we must set up this big banner.
Therefore, from Viet Nam's point of view, if all kinds of small actions do not work, it is difficult to guarantee that Viet Nam has no other ideas in his heart, after all, this is not without a criminal record. At that time, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia did not listen to Viet Nam's greeting in the Indochina Peninsula, and Viet Nam dared to directly invade Cambodia, and now in such an era of bad manners, who dares to guarantee that Viet Nam does not have the same idea of thinking again. Moreover, Viet Nam's influence penetrates deep into Cambodia, and as long as it is not conducive to China's expansion of influence in the Indochina Peninsula, perhaps the United States will be happy to see it, which will make the situation in the Indochina Peninsula more complicated. Therefore, from this point of view, we must also ensure Cambodia's national security, and fundamentally dispel Viet Nam's non-divisive thinking that various geostrategic operations cannot be achieved and the table is directly lifted.
056 launches missiles
So from the tactical point of view, although the two Type 056A frigates are small, they are also a deterrent to the Viet Nam Navy. After all, the Viet Nam Navy's own strength is not much stronger, and the better warships now are several Cheetah-class corvettes, and the performance of our Type 056A frigates is not necessarily much better. After these two Type 056A frigates are in place, it will be somewhat a deterrent to the Viet Nam Navy;
In terms of strategic factors, although the two corvettes are small, they essentially declare to the outside world that the Cambodian Navy is covered by China, and the equipment used is all given by China. Taking it a step further, Cambodia is China's national interest, and you only see two corvettes on the surface, but there may be large destroyers or even aircraft carrier battle groups standing behind it, which is enough to calm down some countries that are about to move.
Open up new forms of arms trade/military aid
Finally, let's talk about military trade, in fact, in Big Ivan's view, if we really hand over two Type 056A frigates to Cambodia Thermal Engine this time, this can be regarded as opening up a new form of foreign military trade and military aid. Before, our country lacked equipment, and all kinds of equipment were new for three years, and the old three years were patched and patched for another three years, and there were very few equipment that was directly transferred to the outside world, because we had no use for it.
Chinese Navy 052B
But now it's different, we don't lack equipment in the first place, such as 056 corvettes, which can be manufactured by many shipyards across the country, and if you really want to build them, I'm afraid it's not a problem to build 200 ships a year. The second is that the speed of equipment upgrading is too fast, such as the J-10 fighter, from the J-10A large-scale equipment to the J-10C large-scale equipment troops, from the J-11B large-scale equipment troops to the J-16 large-scale equipment troops, the difference is only 10 years. The previous generation of equipment has just reached the middle of its life, and new equipment has emerged one after another. It is not cost-effective to upgrade the old equipment, and it has always occupied the establishment if it is not retired, but if it is decommissioned, it is obviously equipment in the prime of life, and after retirement, it will cause a serious waste of resources and military spending.
Chinese Air Force J-10A
The transfer of the two Type 056A frigates to the Cambodian Navy this time has, in a sense, opened up a way for us to deal with this kind of equipment that has been replaced by this generation of equipment at the previous level of technology, but has a long life and cannot be decommissioned. That is, the direct export of second-hand warships and second-hand aircraft, the benefits of exporting these equipment are still great:
First, these equipment are the active equipment of our army, not the special equipment for foreign trade after the failure of the bidding, and the performance, especially the reliability, can be completely assured, and the equipment of our military is absolutely the same level, you don't have to worry about buying the monkey version, let alone worrying about the equipment bought has a bunch of problems in reliability;
Second, the remaining life of these equipment is very large, and there is generally a relatively large margin for upgrades. According to the equipment maintenance level of the People's Liberation Army, you don't have to worry about the technical status of these equipment, saying that you have used half of it, maybe it will be eighty percent new after you get it, you ask us to help upgrade and upgrade, with the intensity of equipment use in third world countries, maybe you can use one-third more life, which is more cost-effective than you directly buy new equipment;
Third, when these equipment are exported, there is a high probability that a large number of third-world countries will rush to it, which is equivalent to treating these countries as our own people, and many follow-up things will be more convenient to operate. After all, we have repeatedly said that the essence of the arms trade is to export security products, and whoever buys our equipment is tantamount to standing on our side.
In fact, this kind of behavior of selling the active equipment to the outside world has not been done by the empire before, and so many Perry-class frigates have been in service for more than 20 years, and they have all been sold to friendly countries. Big Ivan, sooner or later, we have to take this step, let's start with Cambodia.