Chinese Navy looks set for job beyond Pacific

Good news for the China Dolls, but could be bad for the rest of the world....

In what would be the first active deployment of its warships beyond the Pacific, China appears set to send naval vessels to help in the fight against hijackers in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden.

A vice foreign minister and a leading naval strategist were quoted in Chinese state media yesterday as saying that Beijing was close to mounting a naval mission in the gulf.

"China is seriously considering sending naval ships to the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast for escorting operations in the near future," said the Foreign Ministry official, He Yafei, quoted by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. His remarks came at a ministerial meeting of the UN Security Council.

"Apart from fighting pirates," he said, "another key goal is to register the presence of the Chinese Navy."

About 60 percent of China's imported oil comes from the Middle East, and much of that passes through the gulf, along with huge shipments of raw materials from Africa.

While China has been "quite wary of putting maritime assets in the region and wary of doing anything out in the open," Chinese diplomats have been active in anti-piracy efforts, according to Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association.

"The Chinese have been working diplomatically with the Yemeni government and coast guard, and their ambassador in Nairobi is very heavily involved," Bowring said. "They may not seem out in front, but they work extremely hard in the back seat."

Boston Globe..