Luhu class

   The design of the Type 052 or Luhu class destroyer was originally conceived during a time of Sino-American detente, and was therefore schemed with a high proportion of US weapons and equipment. The latter included General Electric LM 2500 gas turbines that were, in the event, among the little US equipment that was in fact exported to China. It is worth noting that the gun mountings are of a new enclosed type, and that full helicopter facilities (flight platform and hangar) are located over the after part of the hull with a French helicopter-handling system.

   Following the 1989 embargo on the delivery of US military equipment to China in the aftermath of the Tianenmen Square massacre, though was given to the use in planned future units of different gas turbines, possibly of Soviet design, but in the event the class was terminated at just the original pair of ships. The second of them is powered by gas turbines purchased from the Ukraine.

   Ordered in 1985 but then delayed by the greater priority afforded to the construction of ships ordered by Thailand, these ships are the Harbin, laid down at the Jiangnan shipyard in November 1990 and commissioned in July 1994, and the Qingdao, laid down at the same yard in January 1993 and commissioned in March 1996.

   By Chinese standards the two Luhu class destroyers are highly capable, and feature notably compact container launchers for two types of anti-ship missile (the YJ-8A (CSS-N-4 Sardine) and C-802 (CSS-N-8 Saccade), a Crotale surface-to-air missile launcher over the forward superstructure, a modern 100-mm gun, and modern French electronics including radars, sonars and a combat data system.