China “had the largest naval fleet in the world. They had 370 ships. They'll have 400 ships in two years. We won't even have 350 ships in two decades."
There is speculation that China might have surpassed the U.S. in having the largest navy in the world and now has more battleships in operation. This came after a 2015 report from the US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) predicted that China’s navy would have over 360 ships by 2020, surpassing the U.S.’s 297 ships. According to an ONI report from December 2020, China does now have the largest navy in the world in terms of ships in its fleet, as the report stated that the People’s Republic of China is "Already commanding the world’s largest naval force." In addition to its aggressive growth, the nation is also modernizing its ships: "the PRC is building modern surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, amphibious assault ships, ballistic nuclear missile submarines, large coast guard cutters, and polar icebreakers at alarming speed." [...] China’s capacity to build the world’s largest navy is greatly helped by the country also being the world’s largest commercial shipbuilder, in 2018 holding over 40% of the global market, as pointed out by the China Power Project. The statistics themselves are shocking, with China building more ships in 2019 in peacetime than the U.S. did during four years of war between 1941 and 1945, according to CNN.