Manually operated surface ships with large crews are an endangered species. Would not be surprised if China (like many others) is working on something that is largely autonomous and fulfills the same mission needs as the 055. So ending production early makes a lot of sense.
Lmao no. Unmanned surface combatants are basically infants who can't even stand up right now. Both their hardware and software still has very far to go before they replace anything bigger than a missile boat or minesweeper, or carry out any missions more complex than "go in that general direction and shoot whatever you see."
Crew reductions from automation is a much more reasonable near-term prospect, but that has tradeoffs of its own w.r.t. damage control.
