From warships to container ships: Why India & US are putting shipbuilding back in focus
India and the United States are prioritizing the revitalization of their domestic shipbuilding industries to counter China's overwhelming global market dominance. Both nations are implementing significant financial incentives and policy shifts to increase their manufacturing capacity for both commercial and naval vessels.
Why it matters
Shipbuilding capacity is a critical component of national security and global supply chain resilience, directly impacting naval power projection and trade logistics.
Both India and the United States are ramping up their shipbuilding capability at a moment when China's share of global ship manufacturing has effectively overtaken the rest of the world combined. According to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, China's share of global shipbuilding output rose from under 5% in 2000 to more than 53% in 2025, while the US accounted for just 0.11 percent in 2024, and effectively nothing by 2025. What makes this particularly significant is that the same Chinese yards, workers and suppliers building commercial tankers also produce destroyers, aircraft carriers and submarines for the PLA Navy, with China State Shipbuilding Corporation alone turning out more commercial tonnage annually than the entire American shipbuilding industry has produced since the Second World War.This scale of dominance has become a genuine strategic concern for New Delhi, and a response is now taking shape.
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