PLA Navy Shipbuilding Notes From Pentagon Report
The 2010 China Military Report is available on the DoD Website (PDF), but surely everyone has taken a peek by now.
Some have suggested - based on the usual open source options that us armchair observers have access too - that Chinese shipbuilding of PLA Navy vessels has slowed down in 2010. Appearances can be deceiving though if you are not watching closely. First, it is important to remember we are in the final year of the Eleventh five year plan (2006-2010), and in the final year of these five year plans we typically do not find pictures of new classes of ships - rather we start seeing those pictures in the beginning of the five year plans.
For example, 052B and 052C destroyers were part of the Tenth five year plan (2001-2005) and they were basically built within that time frame, just like the 054s were laid down in the Tenth five year plan. However, it wasn’t until the Eleventh five year plan (2006-2010) that we began to see the 054A air defense frigates.