For the first time, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) deployed a Type 055 destroyer with an aircraft carrier group during a sea trial earlier this month. “The Type 055 has a significant improvement over the preceding classes of destroyers, in particular the Type 052D, boasting a much larger weapons payload that gives unprecedented defensive and offensive capabilities to the PLA Navy,” Dr Collin Koh, a Research Fellow from RSIS, told South China Morning Post.