Somewhere in the waters between the Gulf of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean, a Chinese frigate built to hunt submarines is operating alongside Russian and Iranian warships for the first time in this configuration. The Type 054A frigate Daqing (hull number 576), a Jiangkai-II class vessel equipped with hull-mounted sonar, a variable-depth sonar array, torpedo launchers, and a helicopter hangar, joined the Maritime Security Belt 2026 trilateral exercise earlier this year as part of a three-ship PLA Navy task group. She is steaming beside the Type 052DL guided-missile destroyer Tangshan (hull number 122) and the Type 903A replenishment ship Taihu, all three drawn from China’s rotating escort task force based at its support facility in Djibouti.
The exercise, which took place in February 2026 according to multiple defense reporting outlets, marks the latest iteration of a series that has brought Chinese, Russian, and Iranian naval forces together in these strategically sensitive waters since 2019. But this round stands out for a specific reason: the composition of Beijing’s contingent strongly suggests the PLA Navy assigned Daqing as the formation’s dedicated anti-submarine warfare screen, a role that aligns precisely with the frigate’s design and that carries implications well beyond a single drill.
A task group built around complementary roles
The three-ship lineup Beijing sent to the exercise is not random. It mirrors the balanced surface action groups the PLA Navy has been rotating through the western Indian Ocean for over a decade, but with a sharper division of labor than earlier iterations.
Tangshan, a late-block variant of the Type 052D destroyer fitted with an enlarged radar array, serves as the group’s air-defense command ship. Her 64-cell vertical launch system can fire HHQ-9 long-range surface-to-air missiles, giving the formation a protective umbrella against aircraft and anti-ship cruise missiles. Daqing handles the threat below the waterline. The Type 054A class was purpose-built with a stronger anti-submarine sensor suite than its predecessor, carrying both a bow-mounted sonar and a towed variable-depth sonar that can search beneath thermal layers where submarines hide. She also carries Yu-7 anti-submarine torpedoes and can embark a Harbin Z-9C or Ka-28 helicopter armed with lightweight torpedoes and sonobuoys. Taihu, the Type 903A fleet oiler, rounds out the group by delivering fuel, fresh water, and stores at sea, allowing the combatants to stay on station without pulling into port.
“That is a textbook escort formation,” said a Western naval analyst who tracks PLA Navy deployments and spoke on condition of anonymity because of professional restrictions. “You have your area-defense shooter, your undersea screener, and your logistics tail. The only thing missing is a dedicated intelligence-collection asset, and for all we know, one of those ships is filling that role too.”
What previous Maritime Security Belt drills looked like
The trilateral exercise series has grown steadily since its first iteration in December 2019, when Chinese, Russian, and Iranian warships conducted joint maneuvers in the Gulf of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean. That initial drill featured basic formation steaming, communication exercises, and a simulated rescue-at-sea scenario. Subsequent rounds in 2022, 2023, and 2024 expanded the scope to include live-fire gunnery, helicopter cross-deck landings, and night navigation serials.
What changed in 2026 is the apparent emphasis on anti-submarine warfare. Previous Chinese contributions to the series included destroyers and frigates, but open-source reporting did not highlight a clear ASW-specialist assignment for the frigate element. The Daqing’s inclusion alongside a high-end air-defense destroyer, rather than a second surface combatant of similar type, suggests Beijing wanted to demonstrate undersea-detection capability to its exercise partners and, inevitably, to the navies watching from outside the drill area.
That audience is not hypothetical. The northern Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman sit astride some of the world’s most heavily trafficked shipping lanes, and U.S. Navy carrier strike groups, French naval task forces, and Indian Navy surface units routinely operate in overlapping waters. The timing and location of the drill guarantee that multiple intelligence-collection platforms, airborne and seaborne, were monitoring the Chinese task group’s movements and emissions.
The Jiangkai-II’s growing resume abroad
Daqing’s assignment is not an isolated data point. The Type 054A class, with more than 30 hulls in service, has become the PLA Navy’s most widely deployed surface combatant outside Chinese home waters. Jiangkai-II frigates have escorted commercial shipping through the Gulf of Aden since 2008, participated in multinational exercises from the Mediterranean to the South Pacific, and made port calls across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Europe. The Republic of Singapore Navy, for example, has publicly identified Chinese warships by class after passage exercises and port visits, a pattern of transparent third-party identification that helps confirm ship-type designations in the public record.
But most of those deployments have emphasized counter-piracy escort, presence operations, or general maritime-security cooperation. The Maritime Security Belt 2026 assignment is notable because it places a Type 054A in an explicitly military exercise alongside two navies that operate submarines of their own: Russia’s Pacific and Northern Fleet boats, and Iran’s growing fleet of Kilo-class and domestically built submarines. If the drill included coordinated ASW serials, Daqing’s crew would have had a rare opportunity to practice tracking non-Chinese submarine signatures in a semi-cooperative environment, a training benefit that is difficult to replicate in peacetime without willing partners.
What the public record still cannot confirm
Important gaps remain. As of June 2026, no primary statement from Iran’s navy, Russia’s Ministry of Defence, or the PLA Navy itself has been publicly released naming the Daqing by hull number and explicitly assigning her an anti-submarine mission for the exercise. The characterization of the frigate as the group’s “anti-submarine specialist” rests on the ship’s known class capabilities and the logic of task-group composition, not on an official exercise order of battle published by any of the three participating navies.
That distinction matters. A warship can carry anti-submarine sensors without being formally tasked in that role during a specific drill, especially if the scenario design emphasizes other skills such as surface gunnery, search-and-rescue, or communications interoperability. No PLA Navy sensor log or post-exercise communique has confirmed that Daqing actually streamed her variable-depth sonar or conducted torpedo-firing serials. The difference between carrying the equipment and using it is the difference between capability and demonstrated employment, and open-source reporting has not yet bridged that gap.
The chronology of the task group’s departure from Djibouti also relies on secondary reporting rather than primary movement records such as Automatic Identification System tracks or official PLA Navy announcements. While the three-ship composition is consistently reported across multiple outlets, the exact sailing date and transit route remain unconfirmed through primary documentation.
Why repetition will be the real tell
For regional navies and Western defense planners, the most useful thing to watch is whether this pattern repeats. If future trilateral or multilateral exercises again feature a Type 054A frigate paired with a larger destroyer and a replenishment ship, with the frigate consistently slotted into the undersea-screening role, the deployment template will start to look less like coincidence and more like emerging doctrine.
There is also the question of the Type 054A’s eventual successor. The PLA Navy has begun commissioning the Type 054B, a larger frigate with an integrated electric propulsion system and what analysts believe is a significantly upgraded sonar suite. If the Type 054B starts appearing in these combined deployments, it would signal that Beijing is not just standardizing the ASW-escort concept but upgrading the platform assigned to fill it.
For now, the story of Daqing at Maritime Security Belt 2026 is best understood as a credible snapshot of capability and intent. The ship composition is solid. The technical profile of the Type 054A makes the anti-submarine role a logical fit. And the broader trajectory of PLA Navy operations far from home waters points toward a fleet that is increasingly comfortable parceling out specialized roles to individual platforms during combined exercises with partners whose own strategic interests do not always align with Beijing’s. Whether that comfort translates into a formal doctrinal template is a question the next deployment cycle may answer.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
