Type 052 Luyang-class Multirole Destroyer

China built 10 destroyers in the year 2019 - 8 Type 052 class @ 8,000 tons and 2 larger Type 055 class @ 12,800 tons. This is twice the current American build cadence for the insanely prolific DDG-51 Arleigh Burkes, @ 10,000 tons. China built more destroyers in a single year than most navies have in their entire inventory.

There does not appear to be any self evident constraint on the final number of units of this class. China was projected by DOD as of 2013 to build more than a dozen of the Luyang III ships to replace the dozen aging LUDA-class destroyers (DD). By 2016 most of the LUDAs seem to have been withdrawn from service, and surely by 2019 all were out of service. There were at least a dozen LUYANG III in service by 2019, with at least this many more in the pipeline. Maintaining a constant number of destroyers / destroyer crews does not seem to be the floor/ceiling, as this number has steadily grown from about 15 in 1985 to more than twice this number by 2020. China might clean up its untidy mixed fleet of older destroyers [2 Luhu, 1 Luhai, 2 Luzhou, and 4 Sovremenny], if only to free up crews for new LUYANG III. Even if no further LUYANG III were forthcoming, the DDG fleet would stabilize at 31 units, and approach 60 units by 2030 adding in the larger Type 055.

But there is no reason to assume that 2019 was the finale year for the LUYANG III, and even a "sedate" pace of 5 per year would place the LUYANG III inventory at about 70 by 2030 and the DDG/CG combined inventory at about 100, rather North of the 80 or so DDG-51s the Americans might deploy in that timeframe. China might aspire to a major surface combatant fleet to equal that of all plausible opponents combined. This would need to match Japan [8 Aegis DDGs], South Korea [12 Aegis DDGs], and Australian [4 Aegis DDGs], for a total of about 110 vessels. India's four Project 15B Visakhapatnam Class destroyers are not quite in the same league, and really in the rounding error. So a building rate of 5 LUYANG III for the decade of the 2020s would yield the requsite 110 major surface combatants by 2030.

As of mid-2016, Chinese sources reported there were four 052D destroyers in service, the shipyard had seven in outfitting and sea test, and had confirmed the construction of at least two ships, with the total number of construction from 18 to 24 units [ie, 2 Type 052B, 6 Type 052C, and 13 Type 052D]. As of 2015 Beijing planned to build at least 10 warships of the Kunming class. As of early 2017, there were more than ten 052D vessel systems, either commissioned or to be commissioned soon. The 2019 DIA China Military Power report, with a November 2018 data cutoff date, stated " ... six Luyang III (Type 052D) class guided-missile destroyers are now operational, with several more under construction." This clearly mis-underestimates the situation, since nearly twice that number appeared to be in service at that time. The Luyyang III class initially saw a building rate of two units launched per year at Jiangnan from 2012 through 2014, which increased to three in 2015 when Dalian came on line, back to 2 per year in 2016 and 2017, up to 3 in 2018, then a blistering 7 vessels in 2019 at both yards.

The list over at navepedia seems to be stuck at 2019. As of mid-2020, shipshub.com appeared to have the best granularity on this topic, although his chronology appears to have a dateline offset, as many milestones are reported one day off from other reports.