Chinese Navy on historic anti-piracy mission

An anti-piracy task force of the Chinese navy set sail Friday for Africa, state media said, in the nation's first potential combat mission beyond its territorial waters in centuries.
The three vessels, decorated with colored ribbons, flags and flowers, weighed anchor at the Yalong Bay naval base on south China's tropical Hainan island at 1:50 p.m, heading for Somalia, the Xinhua news agency said.
"It's the first time we go abroad to protect our strategic interests armed with military force," said Wu Shengli, commander of the Chinese Navy, in a ceremony to see off the roughly 1,000 sailors, according to Xinhua.
"It's the first time for us to organize a naval force on an international humanitarian mission and the first time for our navy to protect important shipping lanes far from our shores."
Dressed in white naval uniforms, the crew of the two destroyers and one supply ship saluted crowds on land amid waving flags and as a military marching band played.
It marks a new chapter for the modern Chinese navy, which has focused on the defense of coastal waters, combined with the occasional friendly port call. Only in 2002 did it circumnavigate the globe for the first time.
Indeed, a Chinese fleet has not fired a shot in anger near Africa since the 15th century, when a Ming Dynasty armada sailed to the continent and back.
The navy has been drawn back to Africa by an escalation of pirate attacks on merchant ships, including Chinese vessels, plying the crucial shipping route linking Asia and Europe.
The three vessels on the mission - the missile-armed destroyers DDG-171 Haikou and DDG-169 Wuhan and the Weishanhu supply ship - are among China's most sophisticated and have all entered service this decade, Xinhua said.
They will operate alongside other international warships patrolling the area near the Gulf of Aden, part of the Suez Canal route.
The mission includes a special operations detail that has spent the past days in intensive training in maritime tactics and diving, said one of their commanders, Lieutenant Commander Xie Zengling.
"If the pirates make direct threats to the warships or the vessels we escort, the fleet will take counter-measures," he told Xinhua, bragging that one member of his unit "could handle several enemies with his bare hands."
China has said its warships will investigate any suspected pirate vessels, and approach them and demand that they show their relevant documents and certificates.
The UN Security Council last week gave nations a one-year mandate to act inside lawless Somalia to stop the rampant piracy.

Source: www.defensenews.com