US Sees India as Potential Partner in Shipbuilding Push to Counter China
Washington–India has emerged as a potential strategic partner in U.S. efforts to reduce China’s dominance of global shipbuilding, with congressional witnesses identifying New Delhi as part of a broader allied strategy to expand maritime industrial capacity outside Beijing.
The issue was discussed during a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, where lawmakers and experts warned that China’s control of commercial shipbuilding poses economic and national security risks to the United States and its allies.
Japan and South Korea were described as Washington’s primary partners because of their established shipbuilding industries, while India was identified as an emerging participant that could contribute to a wider allied maritime network.
Matthew Funaiole, Vice President at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the United States should work “with allies and partners like South Korea and Japan as well as others — India is a new entry into the shipbuilding game as well — to both align on long-term objectives and then also to build up allied capacity at scale outside of China.”
The hearing, titled “Charting a New Course: Countering China’s Dominance in Global Shipbuilding,” examined Beijing’s state-backed expansion of commercial shipbuilding and its impact on global supply chains, military logistics and security in the Indo-Pacific.
Subcommittee Chair Young Kim said China controls more than half of global commercial shipbuilding capacity, while the United States accounts for less than one-tenth of 1%.
She argued that China’s commercial shipbuilding industry directly supports its naval expansion because civilian and military production are closely linked under Beijing’s industrial strategy.
“Our domestic shipyards are backlogged, understaffed, and structurally fragile,” Kim said. “Every dollar a Western company spends to build a commercial vessel in a Chinese shipyard directly subsidises the People’s Liberation Army Navy.”
Ranking Democrat Ami Bera said rebuilding U.S. shipbuilding capacity would require close cooperation with allies.
“The beauty is though; China is doing this alone,” Bera said. “We have allies that we can do this with.”
Bera specifically cited Japan and South Korea while discussing potential cooperation on investment, technology and workforce development.
Witnesses said the United States should not try to compete with China on its own or attempt to match its shipbuilding output vessel for vessel.
Funaiole instead recommended greater transparency into China’s maritime industry, investment in high-value maritime technologies and long-term industrial coordination with allied countries.
He said replacing China’s dominance “is not something that’s going to be easily replaced, and it’s not something the US can address overnight.”
Brent Sadler of the Heritage Foundation called for the creation of a “maritime group of nations” that could include Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Greece and potentially Taiwan. The group would coordinate shipbuilding, trade and technology policies.
Lawmakers also discussed tariffs, port fees, sanctions and export controls as possible tools to reduce reliance on Chinese shipyards while encouraging allied companies to invest in U.S. shipbuilding facilities.
Witnesses warned that China’s large commercial shipbuilding base also supports the rapid expansion of its navy through what they described as a military-civil fusion model. (Source: IANS)
