Further to my post, China's Navy, this from the Naval War College: Underestimating China. They begin
Denigrating Chinese maritime prowess is a longstanding habit in the US naval
establishment. Officers and analysts reared during the Cold War found it
hard to shed the image of China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as a
backward force composed of patrol boats, short-range fighters, and small
submarines that hugged the coast.
Perception chronically lagged reality even after the turn of the century,
when the PLAN started introducing a panoply of high-tech warships, aircraft,
and antiship missiles.