A large Chinese ship sailing towards a much smaller ship
China has the world's largest coast guard fleet, and new acquisitions mean its strength has been significantly boosted.
  • China has the world's largest coast guard fleet, and it's still building up on an ambitious scale.
  • It's been taking ships from its navy and could be getting its own vessel modeled after a destroyer.
  • Experts say the acquisitions mean it's moving closer to being a naval reserve or auxiliary force.

In May, military experts spied a peculiar, half-built vessel sitting among warships at a Shanghai dockyard.

Satellite images showed it had the shape and size of a Type-052D, an advanced guided-missile destroyer in China's navy.