IV. Why China’s Navy Has Entered and Remained in the Gulf of Aden

The Gulf of Aden, a crucial global maritime commercial artery pulsating with European, Africa and Asian trade, is located, depending on one’s starting and ending points, approximately 5,400 nautical miles [10,000 km] from China’s booming coastline. Beijing’s initial entrance and protracted stay there is a major economic, political and military endeavor. China’s decision to undertake it was likely motivated by a range of factors related to both the impact of piracy on Chinese interests and the operation’s potential to contribute to long-term military and political goals:

       •    First, piracy directly affected Chinese trade and the safety of Chinese nationals.

       •    Second, the PLAN operation was a “least-worst” response compared with limited, and increasingly failed, alternatives.

       •    Third, anti-piracy operations are an opportunity for China to improve its international image by providing a global

       •    Finally, the operations have supported naval modernization goals and provided an opportunity to gain experience operating in distant waters.

PLA National Defense University (NDU) professor Tang Yongsheng views the mission’s significance as four-fold: (1) to protect China’s overseas interests; (2) to build China’s national image as a responsible power; (3) to conduct military diplomacy; and (4) to enhance China’s military capabilities.³⁰ Tang’s comprehensive four-point assessment is broadly representative of the diverse motivations for the mission, and merits brief explication:

First, many Chinese scholars view the protection of China’s overseas interests as one of the most important motivations for the operation. The Gulf of Aden, as Tang suggests, is a crucial sea lane for China’s commerce with Europe and North Africa, and for its petroleum imports from the Middle East. Tang further claims that the escort operation creates a forward presence that enables China to respond rapidly to contingencies, citing the role of the escort task force in the 2011 Libya evacuation. As unrest in North Africa and the Middle East continues, Tang’s claim may well be tested in the future.

Meanwhile, Chinese experts continue to debate the effectiveness of escort operations in protecting commerce interests on the sea lanes. Some authors suggest that piracy in the Gulf of Aden is caused by government failure in Somalia, and escorts alone cannot solve the problem in the long run.³¹ Others worry that without the legal support enjoyed by foreign navies it is impossible to punish pirates effectively.³²

Second, the escort operation is viewed as an “important practice” that builds China’s image as a responsible power.³³ China’s cooperation with foreign countries in the Gulf of Aden and its help to foreign ships will counter “China Threat” perceptions, and will improve China’s national image. This view is echoed by Professor Wang Yizhou, Deputy Dean of Peking University’s School of International Studies, who emphasizes the importance of China’s providing public goods for maritime security. Wang suggests that as China builds its naval hardware, supplying public goods such as anti-piracy will be essential for China to win moral support.³⁴

Third, China is using the escort operations to conduct military diplomacy. Its navy coordinates with foreign forces to improve escort efficiency. After the operation, Chinese task forces actively visit foreign ports and conduct joint military exercises. These actions, Liu Jingjin and Qiu Caizhen maintain, are not only important for building up national image, but also provide China’s Navy a chance to learn from experienced foreign counterparts.³⁵

Last but not least, the anti-piracy mission affords China’s Navy opportunities to practice basic blue water operations and gain irreplaceable experience in responding, unscripted, to realistic conditions in real time. The fact that some of the most advanced ships from all three fleets of China’s Navy have long participated underscore efforts to gain real experience. While the anti-piracy tasks have different requirements from traditional military operations, they catalyze useful improvements in logistics and maintenance.

These assessments based on aggregation of Chinese sources track closely with the observations of the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI): “The PLA(N)’s sustained counterpiracy operations in the Gulf of Aden demonstrate Beijing’s intention to protect important SLOCs. China’s participation serves several purposes: first, it is in line with the PLA(N)’s mission requirements to protect the PRC’s strategic maritime interests; second, it provides the PLA(N) with the opportunity to develop and refine the operational capabilities it needs for ‘far seas’ operations; and third, it enhances China’s image as a responsible member of the global community.”³⁶

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Direct Impact on China

Economic Factors

China and other states faced considerable economic incentives, linked to national security, to respond directly to piracy. China’s growing reliance on SLOC stability in the 21^st century is arguably its largest source of external economic vulnerability in the post-reform era. Ninety percent of the world’s trade in goods transits SLOCs, meaning that, even during times of peace in the traditional sense, no maritime trading state or its trading partners is immune to disruptions caused by piracy or other nontraditional security threats. These “lifelines” continue to transport massive amounts of energy and commodity supplies into China. While Beijing is seeking to balance its external supplies through extensive development of continental pipelines, reliance on SLOCs for critical materials will only increase in the coming decades.

This is due to several trends, including a growing emphasis in China on developing a world-class “ocean economy,” as well as Beijing’s need to deal with both environmental degradation and energy security threats by diversifying energy supply through seaborne oil and gas imports.³⁷ For example, China’s tenth, eleventh and twelfth five-year guidelines (for the years 2001-05, 2006-10 and 2011-15, respectively) have all urgently stressed the need for China to confront the interrelated problems of environmental degradation and energy security through diversification. They have also called on China to produce, import and consume more natural gas, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as identify and pursue sources of oil to reduce China’s use of highly polluting coal. Any significant shift away from coal will demand a major increase in both oil and gas imports, which will heighten Beijing’s already considerable reliance on international SLOCs. Additionally, virtually all of China’s public and private transportation infrastructure depends on oil, for which there is often no readily available substitute that could persistently offset a shock to crude supplies. Moreover, while China continues to enlarge its national strategic petroleum reserve, its backup supply remains limited—even if 2020 targets are reached, China’s national crude reserve will still be approximately two-thirds lower than America’s current strategic petroleum reserve.³⁸ In addition to civil transportation, oil is indispensable for China’s Navy and Air Force.

In 1993, China first became a net oil importer, and the proportion of Chinese oil consumption supplied by imports has risen steadily over the past two decades. In 2014, China imported 60 percent of its oil, a figure expected to reach 80% by 2035.³⁹ While Chinese energy independence is generally perceived as infeasible, Beijing is seeking to mitigate the potential risks of external dependence through diversification of types and suppliers.⁴⁰

Robust trends towards greater reliance on international maritime trade are also reflected in China’s pursuit of energy and commodity security. China became a net natural gas importer in 2007, and now imports approximately 32 percent of its gas supply.⁴¹ Shipborne LNG supplies have, in recent years, begun challenging the predominance of traditional fossil fuels in relatively affluent regions of coastal China, where sectors such as residential use and maritime shipping continuously demand more energy.⁴² More broadly, PLA Academy of Military Science (AMS) research fellow Xiong Yuxiang and other domestic experts have expressed concerns that increasing U.S. self-sufficiency as a result of shale gas exploits “could probably add security pressure on China’s maritime economic lifeline, which runs along the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia to the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca.”⁴³

In addition to energy security, the growing size and significance of China’s ocean economy is defined by a booming international maritime trade economy. “China has become a ‘Maritime Shipping Power,’” MOT official Ju Chengzhi declared during a 2009 interview. He cited as evidence his nation’s possession of the world’s fourth largest shipping fleet,⁴⁴ whose 3,300 vessels can transport a total of 84,840,000 tons among them, and reliance on seaborne shipping for 90 percent of its internationally traded goods (imports and exports).⁴⁵ Ju further explained that with 40,000 crewmen China is also a “seafarer power,” with responsibility to protect its citizens thus employed. Growth in Chinese port traffic underscores the magnitude of these trends. Further supporting Ju’s points is a study produced by the PLAN in 2000 projecting that national port throughput was likely to grow from 1.8 billion tons in 2000 to 3 billion tons in 2010. According to Chinese sources, actual growth surged well beyond this estimate to 7 billion tons as early as 2009.⁴⁶

Moreover, according to an article by Navy Military Studies Research Institute (NMSRI) specialist Li Jie in the official PLAN publication Navy Today, China presently has over 700 commercial vessels in operation under far ocean transportation organizations with a total capacity of 46 million tons. Chinese maritime shipping organizations have over 430 ships of various types with a total capacity of over 15.6 million tons, with over 400,000 standard storage containers. The privately-run Hebei Ocean Shipping Company Ltd. alone operates over 150 vessels with total capacity of 15 million tons.⁴⁷ While some of the specific figures reported vary even between different Chinese agencies, the overall point is clear: Beijing is heavily invested in sea-lane security—Chinese well-being quite literally depends on it.

If macroeconomic reliance forces Beijing to emphasize nontraditional maritime security threats, so too does the geographic nature of its SLOC reliance. China depends heavily on sea lines that are some of the world’s busiest and most vulnerable to piracy. Five SLOCs account for 86 percent of China’s foreign trade, the Strait of Malacca being the most important: roughly 82 percent of China’s oil imports transit it,⁴⁸ and over 60 percent of the ships that transit the strait daily are Chinese.⁴⁹ Adding to these routes’ strategic significance, 16 percent of China’s imported oil⁵⁰—comes from Saudi Arabia. Yemen’s instability following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, and the more recent outbreak of violent internal conflict, for example, raise the specter of Yemeni political collapse and refugee exodus. The conflict could unleash major domestic economic and political consequences for Saudi Arabia and subsequently threaten its oil exports. Perhaps more significantly, an unstable Yemen could “worsen the risk of piracy or terrorist attacks in or near the [Bab al-Mandeb] strait.”⁵¹ Already, it has required evacuation by the PLAN of Chinese nationals.

Threats to Chinese Nationals

Beyond the ocean economy, piracy has created unprecedented internal and external political challenges for China’s regime. China’s leadership has, on numerous occasions, discovered that individual pirate attacks on commercial vessels that generate media coverage have a greater impact on Beijing’s domestic and international political image than do abstract trends. As long as pirate threats persist, states like China will be wary of taking public relations risks with major economic and political implications.⁵²

By 2008, the Chinese public had become a significant source of pressure to intervene. The media outlet Eastday reported that a survey showed that 86 percent of Chinese “netizens” (active Internet users) supported a Gulf of Aden mission.⁵³ Chinese social networking websites, such as Weibo, captured some of the discontent felt by Chinese citizens as a result of Beijing’s initially hesitant response to Somali piracy. Many of these netizens criticized Beijing for its inability to protect its increasing number of citizens living abroad. China’s leaders surely followed these comments and blog posts.⁵⁴ This represented a sea change in popular expectations that Beijing may not have fully anticipated. In early 2008, one of the authors queried analysts from China’s intelligence community about the role that public pressure might play in catalyzing government response to protect Chinese citizens overseas who had come under threat. These experts did not see significant scope for Beijing to respond actively, particularly via military means. They maintained that the Chinese public would not expect such protection to be extended, and would instead ask why their compatriots had placed themselves in vulnerable positions.

Yet China’s government has since responded, and fast. Paradoxically, a long-entrenched, authoritarian regime like China’s must in some respects be unusually responsive to short-term public-opinion trends, as it lacks either reserves of enduring ideological affinity or the political release valves of periodic elections and alternation of parties democratic states typically enjoy.⁵⁵

In another online public opinion survey two days before the inaugural deployment, over 90 percent supported the mission out of over 17,000 respondents.⁵⁶ Domestic political pressure thus seems to have played a major role in heightening Beijing’s prioritization of the piracy issue and in strengthening its ultimate response.

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A “Least-Worst” Option

China, like other states, realizes that modern piracy, whether in the Gulf of Aden or elsewhere, is not a self-generating threat, but rather the negative result of poor economic and political conditions on land coupled with contiguous states’ inability to control their coastlines. Although scholarly disagreement persists on the subject, piracy’s existence is clearly rooted in the failure of domestic governance institutions, leading to its presence in states such as Somalia, which are still extremely volatile and unstable.⁵⁷ A recent study found strong correlations between poor labor market opportunities and pirate attacks.⁵⁸ While deploying hulking warships to fight pirate militias might seem unnecessary to some observers, it was and remains one of the few implementable approaches—from the perspective of the United States and other experienced, yet financially stretched, deployers of power projection militaries, the least-worst option.

Mounting piracy problems finally imposed sufficient political incentives to make China’s leaders marshal a concrete response with the December 26, 2008 deployment of China’s first anti-piracy flotilla. Most visibly and hence the greatest subject of popular pressure, several Somali pirate attacks threatened the lives of Chinese merchant sailors and the profits of Chinese shipping companies.⁵⁹ China’s foreign ministry states that from January to November 2008, seven of the 1,265 ships owned, cargoed or crewed by Chinese that transited Somali waters were pirated.⁶⁰

Improvised measures advocated by the MOT, such as evasive maneuvering and deployment of water cannons and even improvised explosive devices, were ineffective. Reaching out to foreign governments and organizations, such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO), likewise proved insufficient. Model defense measures and all-Chinese teams that allowed the China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO) to avoid being pirated entirely were not fully transferrable to many Chinese-connected ships.

Shipping companies became obligated to provide sailors extra incentives, under collective bargaining contracts negotiated with the Hong Kong Seamen’s Union. For instance, sailors crewing Hong Kong-registered ships transiting high-risk waters such as the Gulf of Aden were entitled to double salaries and injury reimbursements during each day they spent there. Such contracts covered approximately one thousand Hong Kong-registered vessels and foreign-registered vessels owned by Hong Kong ship owners. In “high-risk areas,” if a shipping company chose a route outside internationally designated safety corridors in the Gulf of Aden, sailors were entitled to disembark beforehand, leaving the company responsible for covering their travel fees.

Rising insurance premiums and re-routing costs threatened the narrow profit margins of China’s shipping industry, which lacked effective alternatives. Unable to afford private security firms’ hefty fees given their bare-bones business models, Chinese shipping to Europe began circumnavigating the Cape of Good Hope. The added sailing, on average six days, risked missing ironclad delivery dates, consequent breaches of contracts and thereby loss of market share to competitors.

Effectively addressing the surging piracy problem clearly required not merely uncoordinated stopgaps but decisive, comprehensive action from Beijing.

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Providing Global Public Goods

Beijing’s deployment of naval anti-piracy forces has satisfied China’s need to demonstrate to domestic and foreign audiences its resolve in protecting overseas interests, while also bolstering its image as a responsible stakeholder. Ren Haiping, in a Navy Today publication, noted that China’s Navy had achieved “Two safety 100 percents” () during escorts by ensuring absolute safety for both all ships escorted as well as PLAN warships themselves.⁶¹ Ren also stated that China’s Navy had displayed the image of a responsible power throughout its then already more than 1,800 days in the Gulf of Aden.⁶²

This is significant, as Chinese and international observers expand dialogues on potential discrepancies between Chinese capabilities and contributions in the global commons and other areas of international security. And as Beijing has quickly learned, incidents involving Chinese citizens, companies or military forces abroad offer excellent opportunities to portray China as a responsible stakeholder. Moreover, Wei Xueyi, commander of the 6^th escort flotilla,⁶³ emphasized the international political angle of PLAN anti-piracy operations: “Warships are mobile national territory; the escort flotilla is a name card for China’s image. While conducting escorts in the Gulf of Aden, we not only need to guarantee the safety of escorted ships, but need even more to display the elegance of the Chinese Navy, [and thereby] display an image of China being a responsible power.”⁶⁴

Internationally, China’s announcement that it would dispatch an escort flotilla to the Gulf of Aden came as a surprise to few, particularly since several other nations had already undertaken, or were preparing to undertake, similar actions. For example, Russia, NATO countries and India had already announced anti-piracy deployments. Of course, Chinese naval officials were extremely cautious in announcing the PLAN anti-piracy mission, stipulating that it would protect mainly commercial vessels from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the only addition being “ships of international organizations [such as the WFP] that are carrying humanitarian supplies to Somalia.”⁶⁵ This posture conveniently allowed China to end its status as the only permanent UNSC member not contributing to global maritime security and thereby to enhance its international resume as a responsible stakeholder while limiting its initial obligations.⁶⁶

However, nontraditional security contingencies such as piracy present political and public relations challenges that are complex and risky for an often-cautious Chinese leadership. Specifically, anti-piracy operations involve the risk of embarrassing failures at the hands of unprofessional militants. Additionally, the PLAN’s Gulf of Aden anti-piracy mission has exposed inherent tensions between China’s traditional noninterventionist foreign policy and mounting domestic pressure on the Chinese government to protect its citizens and interests overseas within the context of poorly defined international maritime laws and norms concerning piracy. Both at home and abroad, China’s leaders are pressured to make proactive international contributions. As such pressure grows on a range of issues, anti-piracy operations also represent relatively low-risk opportunities for testing Beijing’s policy preferences in this regard.

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Military Modernization

If failure threatens public support, success risks creating unrealistic expectations. Thus, Beijing’s recent anti-piracy forays have sparked fundamental debates within China, with some policymakers eager to build on mission benefits and political justification otherwise unavailable to Beijing, and others hesitant to depart from a conservative foreign policy. It is thus important to contextualize the Gulf of Aden mission in terms of broader Chinese military development. China’s military, including the PLAN as well as the ground forces, People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the Second Artillery Force (PLASAF), has actively diversified its operational portfolio in the 21^st century. Broadening PLA roles reflect complex, perpetually shifting security environments inside and outside of China, as well as the recognition of these changes by China’s Party, civil and military leadership. Gulf of Aden deployments embody the underlying need to creatively adapt to security challenges stressed in top-level doctrinal guidance, including Jiang Zemin’s “winning local wars under conditions of informatization,” Hu Jintao’s “diverse military tasks,” and Xi Jinping’s injunction to “strategically manage the sea, and do more to promote China’s efforts to become a maritime power.”⁶⁷

In particular, in 2004 Hu proposed the concept of “New Historic Missions,” viewed by many as an extension of his broader “scientific development” guidance into the military realm.⁶⁸ China’s contemporary military operations other than war (MOOTW), including Gulf of Aden anti-piracy, involve addressing nontraditional security threats and represent the operational embodiment of Hu’s “New Historic Missions” guidance.⁶⁹ PLAN nontraditional security missions, such as anti-piracy and others enumerated above, are part of a larger push for China’s military to perform historic missions. Hu’s “scientific development” concept overtly links China’s development with the prosperity of the world, imbuing nontraditional security missions conducted by the PLAN far from China with particular significance in modern Chinese military doctrine.

While these concepts are typically perceived as Hu’s major contributions to Chinese security thinking and practice, follow through has been limited in scope and intensity, making the Gulf of Aden mission especially important. This is partly due to the fact that Hu was surrounded by Jiang Zemin allies during his first term, effectively limiting his scope for action. Even after being “freed” of these constraints during his second term, however, Hu apparently chose not to exercise power vigorously, and did not attempt to push through major new operations beyond the Gulf of Aden deployment.

Other factors further increase the doctrinal significance of the PLAN’s international anti-piracy operations. For example, the perceived inefficacy with which China’s military responded to the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 incentivized the PLA to restore its image as a military capable of effectively protecting Chinese citizens at home and abroad in difficult conditions. In other words, the PLAN’s Gulf of Aden deployment thus far and sustained presence can be viewed as a particularly useful, if thus far exceptional, operationalization of Hu’s strategic guidance.⁷⁰ In the military realm, it affords China an opportunity to develop far-ranging naval capabilities under the aegis of providing public goods.

China’s Navy in particular had incentives to get more involved in higher profile, Far Seas operations. The anti-piracy mission helps maximize PLAN prestige, funding, equipment and information technology.⁷¹ It helps afford the PLAN the greatest exposure abroad, the greatest diplomatic responsibilities, the greatest potential for international peacetime interaction and the greatest ability to learn from foreign counterparts of China’s military services. Anti-piracy offers the PLAN justification for expanding and sustaining distant seas operations, while helping it enhance its ability to do so effectively. All these dynamics align with Beijing’s emerging foreign and security policy, but from the perspective of PLAN organizational interests the anti-piracy mandate could scarcely be more timely or congenial.

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As its ocean economy and international role expand, China will increasingly encounter security challenges that incur different types of costs, depending on whether and how Beijing chooses to address them. Modern piracy is one of the first of many challenges that will require Beijing to step outside its foreign policy comfort zone. This is because nontraditional security threats demand a multidimensional calculus and response for which China’s previous static foreign policy approaches have proven progressively inadequate. The Gulf of Aden experience is positive for China and the world. It not only reflects Chinese understanding of this development, but also a realization that more often than not China and potential partners in the maritime commons share common interests and concerns.

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³⁰ [Tang Yongsheng], “” [China’s Anti-piracy Operation at the Gulf of Aden and Responsibilities of Big Power], [International Politics Quarterly], No. 2 (2013), pp. 6-9.

³¹ [Wang Xuejun], “” [Piracy in Africa and International Anti-Piracy Cooperation], [Contemporary International Relations], No. 12 (2012), pp. 28-33.

³² [Wang Meng], “” [Piracy in Somalia and the Response of the International Community], Contemporary International Relations, No. 8 (2010), pp. 17-23.

³³ Andrew S. Erickson and Austin M. Strange, “China’s Blue Soft Power: Antipiracy, Engagement, and Image Enhancement,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Winter 2015), pp. 71-91.

³⁴ [Wang Yizhou], “” [New Opportunities and New Challenges for China’s Foreign Policy: Speaking from Issues Faced in the Ocean Direction], [China National Conditions and Strength], No. 6 (2013), pp. 7-9.

²⁹ Liu Jingjin and Qiu Caizhen, “” [Escort Task: An Important Stage for Navy Military Diplomacy], [journal of Naval University of Engineering] Vol. 8, No. 4 (2011), pp. 71-74.

³⁶ The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the 21^st Century (Suitland, MD: Office of Naval Intelligence, 2015), p. 9.

³⁷ [Wan Jianmin], “” [Moving from “Coastal Seas” to “Far Seas”], [Economic Daily], August 19, 2011, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64093/82429/83083/15456542.html; “Key Targets of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan,” Xinhua, March 5, 2011, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-03/05/c_13762230.htm.

³⁸ Wayne Ma, “U.S. Asks China to Team Up on Oil,” China Real Time, Wall Street Journal, October 31, 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/10/31/u-s-asks-china-to-team-up-on-oil/.

³⁹ Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015, Annual Report to Congress (Arlington, VA: Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 8, 2015), p. 24.

⁴⁰ Ibid., pp. 18-19.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 24.

⁴² Navy Liu, “LNG Starts to Challenge Traditional Bunker Fuel in China,” Bunkerworld, April 17, 2012, http://www.bunkerworld.com/community/blog/112396.

⁴³ “Chinese Military Shoulders Obligations in Safeguarding World Peace,” Xinhua, April 16, 2013, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90786/8210159.html.

⁴⁴ Different sources list different rankings, and data change over time, likely to China’s benefit in terms of rank. According to one 2015 source, China is now third behind Greece and Japan in terms of “ownership and control nationality.” “China-Owned Ships: A Rapid Rise to Become One of the World’s Largest Fleets,” Hellenic Shipping News, March 17, 2015, http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/china-owned-ships-a-rapid-rise-to-become-one-of-the-worlds-largest-fleets/.

⁴⁵ Xu Jingjing, “Why We Want to Escort: Interview with Ju Chengzhi, Head of the Ministry of Transportation’s International Cooperation Department,” Sanlian Life Weekly, No. 3, January 19, 2009, pp. 92-95, www.zsnews.cn/News/2009/01/16/1018431.shtml.

⁴⁶ “” [Conversation with Yin Zhuo: Escorts Are an Epoch-Making Event], Navy Today, No. 12 (December 2011), p. 22.

⁴⁷ Li Jie, “A New Milestone in Going to the Ocean,” Five Year Escort Special Column, Navy Today, No. 12 (December 2013), p. 19.

⁴⁸ Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015, Annual Report to Congress (Arlington, VA: Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 8, 2015), p. 24.

⁴⁹ Zhang Xuegang, “China’s Energy Corridors in Southeast Asia,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief, Vol. 8, No. 3 (February 4, 2008), http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnewspercent5Btt_newspercent5D=4693.#.UsjfASuf95V.

⁵⁰ Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015, Annual Report to Congress (Arlington, VA: Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 8, 2015), p. 25.

⁵¹ Ben Simpfendorfer, “Yemen’s Security Challenge Tests China’s Foreign Policy,” South China Morning Post, August 23, 2011 www.scmp.com/article/976877/yemens-security-challenge-tests-chinas-foreign-policy.

⁵² “Pirates-Held Hostages Finally Come Home,” China Daily, July 25, 2012, http://www.china.org.cn/china/2012-07/25/content_26004221.htm.

⁵³ “ [Uncovering Secrets of the Chinese Navy’s Long-Distance Somalia Operation: Rapid-fire Assault Is the Most Suitable Way to Fight Pirates], [Eastday Web], December 26, 2008, mil.sohu.com/20081226/n261430151.shtml.

⁵⁴ [Huang Li], [Sword Pointed at the Gulf of Aden: The Chinese Navy’s Bright Far Oceans Sword] (Guangzhou: [Zhongshan University Press], 2009), p. 172.

⁵⁵ Andrew S. Erickson and Austin M. Strange, “Ripples of Change in Chinese Foreign Policy? Evidence from Recent Approaches to Nontraditional Waterborne Security,” Asia Policy, No. 17 (January 2014), pp. 93-126.

⁵⁶ “” [Netizens: Support Chinese Naval Escorts Establishing the Image of a Great Power], [People’s Net], December 24, 2008, military.people.com.cn/GB/42970/8570300.html.

⁵⁷ “U.N. Takes New Steps to Curb Somalia’s Pirates,” PBS NewsHour, December 17, 2008, www.pbs.org/.

⁵⁸ Ryan S. Jablonski and Steven Oliver, “The Political Economy of Plunder: Economic Opportunity and Modern Piracy,” Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 57, No. 4 (2012), pp. 682-708.

⁵⁹ Xu Jingjing, “Why We Want to Escort: Interview with Ju Chengzhi, Head of the Ministry of Transportation’s International Cooperation Department,” Sanlian Life Weekly, No. 3, January 19, 2009, pp. 92-95, www.zsnews.cn/News/2009/01/16/1018431.shtml.

⁶⁰ “Navy to Fight Pirates in Somali Waters,” China Daily, December 19 2008, http://www.china.org.cn/china/military/2008-12/19/content_16975595.htm.

⁶¹ Admiral Wu Shengli made an identical statement in his discussion with one of the authors.

⁶² Ren Haiping, “A Great Power Navy’s Assumption of Responsibility—Writing on the Five-Year Anniversary of the People’s Navy’s Escort Fleet Expedition,” Five Year Escort Special Column, Navy Today, No. 12 (December 2013), p. 3.

⁶³ [Chinese Naval Escort Fleet Has Become a Famous Brand—Rarely Refuses Requests from Merchant Vessels], [Liberation Army Daily], November 30, 2010, http://www.china.com.cn/military/txt/2010-ll/30/content_21449993.htm.

⁶⁴ [Zhong Kuirun], “” [The Responsibility and Undertaking of the Chinese Navy: Three Revelations of the Sixth Escort Task Force’s Escorts in the Gulf of Aden], Liberation Army Daily, November 30, 2010. For further details concerning the 6^th task force’s experience in the Gulf of Aden, see “” [Sixth Escort Task Force of the Chinese Navy Returns Triumphantly], [Exclusive Report], Navy Today, No. 2 (February 2011), pp. 40-43.

⁶⁵ “Chinese Navy Sets Sail for Anti-piracy Mission off Somalia,” People’s Daily Online, December 26, 2008, english.peopledaily.com.cn/.

⁶⁶ Amitai Etzioni, “Is China a Responsible Stakeholder?” International Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 3 (2011), pp. 539-53, http://icps.gwu.edu/files/2011/05/China-Stakeholder.pdf.

⁶⁷ As David Finkelstein notes, however, shifts away from industrial-age warfare doctrine began in the early 1990s. David M. Finkelstein, “China’s National Military Strategy: An Overview of the ‘Military Strategic Guidelines,’” Asia Policy, No. 4 (2007), pp. 67-72.

⁶⁸ James Mulvenon, “Chairman Hu and the PLA’s New Historic Missions,” China Leadership Monitor, No. 27 (Winter 2009), http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/CLM27JM.pdf.

⁶⁹ Roy D. Kamphausen, “China’s Military Operations Other Than War: The Military Legacy of Hu Jintao.” Paper presented at SIPRI conference, “The Hu Jintao Decade in China’s Foreign and Security Policy (2002-12): Assessments and Implications,” Stockholm, April 18-19, 2013, http://books.sipri.org/files/misc/SIPRI-Hupercent20Kamphausen.pdf; Cortez A. Cooper, “The PLA Navy’s ‘New Historic Missions:’ Expanding Capabilities for a Re-Emerging Maritime Power,” Testimony presented before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on June 11, 2009, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/2009/RAND_CT332.pdf.

⁷⁰ The authors thank Nan Li for his insights concerning this paragraph.

⁷¹ “” [Satellite System of Chinese Navy Warship Going to Somalia a World Leader], Sina.com, March 3, 2009, mil.news.sina.com.cn/2009-03-03/1427544201.html.