Judging PLAN readiness as a developing warfighting fleet

Which skills and doctrinal lessons does the PLAN lack compared with the Royal Navy, US Navy, and NATO, and how are such lessons maintained?

There is no universal list of lessons every navy needs. Professional personnel and an evolving warfighting fleet are weighed against concerns about combat experience and possible institutional weaknesses.

Different navies need lessons suited to their own missions. From meeting and occasionally teaching PLAN personnel, Clarke considers them as professional as their Royal Navy and US Navy counterparts. He describes China as building a fleet for warfighting, with growing pains that should be judged alongside its evolving capability. He also compares China with Germany and Russia as powers whose large land borders and internal demands can divert attention from naval development. Other panel members raise limited combat experience and possible cronyism under single-party rule as vulnerabilities. Those concerns are interpretations of institutional risk, rather than agreement that Chinese personnel are professionally inferior.