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[quote]From the dockside of the Yalong Bay base the three decorated vessels that weighed anchor and slipped off into the tropical seas yesterday afternoon might have been any normal coastal patrol.

For Beijing – and for governments watching across the globe – it was the beginning of a new era in world naval history. The interests of China now extend far beyond its borders but this was the first time in more than five centuries that it has travelled outside its territorial waters to defend them.

The last time a Chinese military fleet set sail for anywhere as far afield as Africa with the prospect of a fight at the other end, the ships were 400ft (122m) wooden junks and the commander was a Ming dynasty court eunuch called Zheng He.

The Chinese ships – two high-tech, heavily armed destroyers and a supply vessel – will spend the next ten days bound for the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia, which has been the scene of more than 100 hijackings within the past year.
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There have been seven attacks involving Chinese ships or crew since January and the pirate onslaught show few signs of abating – pirates have made an estimated $30 million (£20 million) this year. On Christmas Day a German military helicopter rescued an Egyptian ship from a violent hijacking.

The ships will spend three months patrolling the seas, protecting Chinese merchant ships and the flow of strategic cargo – chiefly crude oil and minerals – through the region. Critically, and in a significant and historic break with policy, the Chinese ships are travelling on the assumption that they will engage in combat with the enemy.

“It’s the first time we go abroad to protect our strategic interests armed with military force,â€

This is florid crap. China deploying three ships to a place that is not off the coast of China is not the "dawn of a new age of Chinese conquest". We ASKED them to send a ship or two over to the Gulf of Aden to see about securing it from the Pirates. Nobody screamed "end of the world" when the Russians did this, or the Indians, or the Germans, or the French...

The USN is in he Gulf of Aden doing PRECISELY what the Chinese ships are preparing to do. Can we PLEASE stop desperately trying to make "The big story" about every time the Chinese military sneezes? We've got two carrier battle groups in the goddamn Western Pacific. A handful of Chinese destroyers sent to support a UN mission that we asked them to help with is not "signs of disquiet and fear". It's exactly what we've been hoping.

Specifically that the Chinese will tie themselves into the rest of the world's trade and diplomatic channels tightly enough that they can't start any crazy adventures.

Plenty of nations get tied in tight and still do crazy shit. It's how scared the old men in Beijing get of the young men that will dictate their actions.

It's not that the Chinese are plotting world conquest. Far from it. It's that the ruling elite feels very, very insecure and keeps in power by playing the economic card and playing to the rising nationalism in the younger kids.

I agree completely, but I still fail to see how their deploying a task force to help with the Piracy issue is somehow evidence of any malfeasance or threatened malfeasance on their part. This is China behaving itself as a civilized nation ought behave. I just wish I could stop seeing "Yellow peril" stories from major media outlets every time China does anything.