The Communist Party of China (CPC) blasted a melodramatic report by a Hong Kong newspaper that said China is building a fleet of advanced robot submarines with artificial intelligence (AI) for brains to wrest control of the seas from the U.S. Navy.
The Global Times, which is owned by the CPC, noted that the story published by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) is overblown and confrontational. It said that China is only one among many countries developing unmanned submarines.
Such a Chinese submarine, which will be capable of carrying out multiple missions as the SCMP story claims, "does not exist as of yet," said Global Times quoting an anonymous submarine expert. Global Times added that even if such a boat had reached the experimental phase, "it was still far from deployment." SCMP claims the first of these AI subs will be deployed by the early 2020s.
"It is normal for China to develop such weapons to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the People's Liberation Army Naval Military Studies Research Institute. Zhang noted the development of this type of weapon is not directed against any specific country, meaning the United States.
Zhang said the report magnified the "rhetoric of the China threat theory," and was "trying to create a confrontational atmosphere between China and the U.S."
"The U.S. is by far leading the world in the development of unmanned submarines, and so it is an exaggeration to say that China is challenging the advantageous position established by Western naval powers," he said.
The object of Zhang's indignation is an SCMP story, which claims China is developing large, smart and relatively low-cost unmanned submarines that can roam the world's oceans. These robot subs can accomplish a wide range of missions ranging from reconnaissance to suicide attacks against enemy warships, according to scientists involved in this AI project.
What makes the SCMP story noteworthy is that it focused on a class of UUVs being intensely developed by the U.S. Navy. This class is the "Extra-Large Unmanned Underwater Vehicles" or XLUUVs.
"Yes, we are doing it," said Lin Yang, a marine technology equipment director at the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
SCMP said these autonomous robotic submarines are expected to be deployed by the early 2020s. Chinese XLUUVs "will challenge the advantageous position established by Western naval powers after the Second World War. The robotic subs are aimed particularly at the United States forces in strategic waters like the South China Sea and the western Pacific Ocean."
Lin is chief scientist of the 912 Project, a classified program to develop new-generation military underwater robots in time for the 100th anniversary of the CPC in 2021.
