China’s burgeoning undersea sensor net aims to turn the ocean transparent
The PLA is building a self-healing “kill web” to surpass today’s brittle kill chains.
Tye Graham and Peter W. Singer | October 15, 2025
The China Intelligence China C4ISR Navy Asia-Pacific
The China Intelligence: What open sources tell us about Chinese forces, weapons, and strategy.
The People's Liberation Army is building an “invisible net” across the western Pacific, a five-layer, seabed-to-space sensor architecture known as the Transparent Ocean strategy that challenges the ability of U.S. and allied submarines (our “black sharks”) to maneuver and hide.
The threat was on display in August during the PLA Navy and Russia's Joint Sea-2025 exercises near Vladivostok. In joint anti-submarine warfare drills, Chinese and Russian forces linked their communications and shared hydro-meteorological and air-sea tracks in real time. The goal, according to Chinese state media, was to leave deep-diving submarines with nowhere to hide.
This exercise served as an early demonstration of a mature, automated kill web that China plans to spread across multiple seas and oceans. Intended to enable persistent, real-time tracking across vast areas, the web will consist of five layers:
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2025/10/chinas-burgeoning-undersea-sensor-net-aims-turn-ocean-transparent/408815/?oref=d1-skybox-hp
