BEIJING: Apart from goodwill visits, the last time Chinese warships sailed to Africa was some 600 years ago, when the Ming Dynasty eunuch Admiral Zheng He commanded one of the mightiest armadas in the world on a diplomatic mission.

Now two Chinese destroyers and a supply vessel are due to set out this week to Somali waters to help international efforts to fight piracy, showing a rising but cautious power’s desire to project its global influence without alarming neighbours.

While China’s growing wealth and influence have seen it involved in a number of peacekeeping operations around the world, it has traditionally kept troops close to home, reflecting a doctrine of non-interference in other nations’ affairs.

But the Somalia mission, aimed at beating back a common international scourge and to protect its energy and mineral supplies, is an opportunity for China to take a greater role in global security without raising hackles from neighbours, many of whom have long-festering border disputes with Beijing.

“I suspect Beijing looks at it as an opportunity made in heaven,” Ron Huisken, a senior China analyst at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, told Reuters.

“They are desperately keen to be seen as good international citizens, and here is something which has no diplomatic barbs on it,” the Australian National University-based Huisken said.

“They also wouldn’t be adverse to registering gentle (strategic) messages, to Delhi for example, that they can come and play in that part of the world.”

India, which held a large military exercise with the United States, Australia, Japan and Singapore in the Bay of Bengal last year, has been largely silent, preoccupied more with Pakistan in the wake of the militant attacks in Mumbai last month.

“In this case China is contributing to the collective good and this current tasking does not significantly alter the maritime presence in the Indian ocean as it exists now,” said C. Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based Indian strategic affairs analyst.

Space walk

The presence of Chinese warships in foreign waters is sure to fan nationalist flames in Japan, a past war-time foe, whose pacificist constitution frustrates its involvement in military operations abroad, said Phil Deans, professor of international relations at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.

“But at the same time you can say this is China showing that it wants to be part of the international community ... So it’s very much up to the way media or politicians choose to spin (it).”

China has been playing an increasingly active global role for the last few years, hosting talks on getting North Korea to give up its nuclear programme and taking a leading role in solving the world financial crisis.

Its ambitions have also been revealed in an ambitious space exploration project, which involved the first space walk by a Chinese astronaut earlier this year.

This, along with Beijing’s opaque but quickening military build-up, has all contributed to a sense of unease in some parts of Asia, especially Taiwan, the self-ruled island China claims as its own and has vowed to wrest back, by force if necessary.

“The issue of intention and transparency of the Chinese military will continue to be a matter of concern not only for Taiwan but other countries in the region in the world,” said Wu Ray-kuo, managing director of political risk consultancy and e-telligence at Taipei’s Fu-Jen University.

Beijing has been careful to cast the Somalia mission as a decision arrived at after much soul-searching and with their hand forced by pirates.

A multilateral force rescued a Chinese boat from a pirate attack last week, and at least seven ships either flying China’s flag or carrying Chinese crew have been hijacked since January this year.

“The main mission is to protect the security of Chinese vessels and personnel passing through these seas, and to protect the security and safety of ships carrying humanitarian supplies,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement on the ministry’s website on Saturday.

The reality is that the country’s leaders have been under “domestic political pressure” from a public expecting China’s military to respond, said Zhu Feng, director of the International Security Programme at Peking University.

“It’s also an opportunity to test the navy’s equipment and blue-water battle capabilities in an environment western powers cannot find cause for reproach,” Zhu said.

“The operation will not affect international relations and Chinese diplomacy, but it can be seen as a benchmark of China’s rising and growing military power.”—Reuters