The US Navy’s ability to address the concerns of allies and to keep at bay potential enemies in the South China Sea is an “open question,” military analysts suggest, pointing to a large-scale build up of missiles and warships by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), that could tip the scales of naval dominance in the region.

… Regarding Beijing’s elevated spending levels on defense projects, “the PLA Navy has really been the beneficiary of a lot of this new spending in the past 15 years,” according to Richard Bitzinger, a fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Bitzinger said it is not possible to know precisely how much Beijing spends on its navy, “but simply extrapolating from the quantity and the quality of things that are coming out of their shipyards, it’s pretty amazing.”