I guess as armchair analysts, we will never know. However I don't see China having those maritime ambitions unless you expect China to behave like the US. A briefing in one of the postings in sinodefence showed a presentation at one US military academies which basically said China will not build to a level close to the US as this would signal a confrontation. But they will demonstrate their ability. So while their ships will sail further, CBG apart from Pacific and Indian Ocean would have to be considered very carefully. They have more priorities than military spending.
US briefings about Chinese strategic thinking are best guesses at best, and pure projection/fantasy a lot of the time.
China has zero interest in persuing the kinds of missions and objectives that the USN does, but the PLAN is not developing in a vacuum.
Much of China’s leadership have always been suspicious of America, and with the US demonstrating such naked disregard for the much vaunted ‘rules based order’ they originally wrote and maintained, in favour of leveraging its economic might for zero sum gains at the expense of anyone not strong enough to resist or fight back, is it really such a stretch to think one needs to also build raw military might to deter the US from trying to achieve its political and economic objectives via the use of military force? I mean, it’s not like anything like that has ever happened to China before has it?
So even though China does not want to pursue similar missions as the USN, it still may need to build up a similar fleet in order to effectively deter, or even fight off American military adventurism.
With Chinese interests increasingly globalising, and China becoming ever more depending on overseas suppliers and markets, simply holding the home turf is increasingly looking like an insufficient hedge. Especially since any American economics driven military adventurism is unlikely to be directed at mainland China.
It’s not hard at all to think of scenarios where the CIA organise some Ukraine/Libya/Syria style regime change black ops in countries of significant economic and strategic important to China as a means of hurting China and/or profiting America.
Even the Russian intervention in Syria is serverly hamstrung by Russia’s lack of a strong navy. So when the US wants to bomb Syria, all they dare to do is shoot down the incoming missiles; when the US calls in artillery and air strikes on Russian irregulars, all they can do is downplay the losses.
Those are lessons China is drawing, and those are not the kinds of limitations the Chinese want to face if they ever have to defend their national interests abroad.
With a fleet able to go toe to toe with whatever the USN can muster, the Americans would have to be far more restrained in their actions. And if they step over the line, China will have far more options to respond without risking inviting a one-sided fight and likely public beating, as any Russian attempts to directly engage US forces in Syria would almost certainly lead to.
