A second suspected Chinese undersea drone mothership appears on the Pearl River in Guangzhou

A second ship that analysts believe is designed to launch and recover very large uncrewed underwater vehicles for the Chinese navy has surfaced in Guangzhou, according to footage that began circulating on Chinese social media over the weekend. Naval News reported on Oct. 18 that the stills come from two short video clips first shared on Weibo, which show several tugboats towing the unfinished auxiliary along the Pearl River near the city's Panyu district.

The vessel was still covered in scaffolding and had none of its sensors or communications equipment fitted. Naval News said the authenticity of the clips had not been confirmed, adding that checks with several AI-detection tools suggested the material was genuine, although minor enhancements could not be ruled out. The Liberty Times defence desk, relaying the report on Oct. 19, likewise said the footage remained unverified.

The ship looks like a scaled-down version of a vessel spotted about a month ago at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard on Changxing Island in Shanghai. Naval News estimated the Guangzhou hull at around 150 metres, against slightly more than 200 metres for the Shanghai ship, while The War Zone judged it to be roughly a third smaller overall. Both designs have a raised forward deckhouse with the bridge, a large opening into a hangar-like space behind it, side-by-side funnels and a stern gate resembling the entrance to a well deck.

The clearest difference is at the stern. The Shanghai vessel carries twelve lifting masts set in pairs at two heights, while the Guangzhou ship has six extended masts of similar height. Naval News assessed that the masts may raise and lower a cradle inside the stern bay to put underwater vehicles into the sea and bring them back aboard. It said the cradle seen in Shanghai could handle payloads up to 50 metres long, and that satellite imagery suggests China is evaluating at least two extra-large drone submarine designs of 35 to 45 metres, which would make them the largest known military underwater drones.

The two specialist outlets differ on where the new ship was built. Naval News said one plausible origin is the COMEC yard, formerly Guangzhou Shipyard International, on Longxue Island downstream from the city, but that both the builder and the site of further fitting-out work still need confirmation, with at least two Huangpu Wenchong yards upriver also possible. The War Zone said archival satellite imagery from Oct. 2 shows the ship partly visible in a covered graving dock at the Longxue Island facility before launch, and concluded that the yard did build it.

The Longxue Island yard has become a major supplier of auxiliaries to the People's Liberation Army Navy. According to Naval News, it has assembled two sets of large amphibious barges since around 2024 that observers link to a possible support role in an invasion of Taiwan, and it is also building replenishment ships, submarine support vessels and an experimental flat-deck hull for drone trials. The Liberty Times noted that there is no direct evidence connecting the new ship to the barge programme.

The War Zone said two such ships could still be intended largely for experiments, but argued that a growing fleet able to deploy and recover many underwater drones, or a few very large ones, far from China's coast would give Beijing an asymmetric capability, including against American outposts deep in the Pacific. It noted that the US Navy has no comparable launch and recovery ship in service. China's military rarely discloses details of such projects, and Naval News said the purpose of the two vessels is likely to remain a matter of speculation until more detailed imagery emerges.