The only thing the yankees is aware is their high tech ship to be sunken by an unknown assassin at sea. Only the submarines could do the same to spread FEAR in the minds of the enemy. This is a kind of 'Cold - Cold war' that nobody expect to shoot first but expecting the rivals to shoot and blame all faults in political means! Chinese submarine has been closely shadowing the Kitty Hawk carrier group within a few nautical miles so this is the cutting edge of Chinese naval power by popping up suddenly within the torpedo range. Flooding the entire South China sea with submarine patrols will heighthen the tension and the let the world know our serious over south China sea.

By the way, the phase out of Ming class, 1950s era subs were  too slow, there were twenty plus these old subs still in service, it was  really a shame! The output of Chinese submarine building is too slow and no Russian sbus has imported in the past seven years lead to a drop of potentcies of Chinese underwater firepower! At present a 60 plus submarine force is inadequate to comat the strong naval power of western fleet in west pacific, the navy is China's weakest link, the worst link that frequently under stress! The Big ARMY doctrine really hurt China.