Pirates and Dragon Boats: Assessing the Chinese Navy's Recent East African Deployments

Abstract

In January 2009, two destroyers and a supply ship from the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) began counterpiracy operations off the coast of Somalia. The mission of this modest task force was to offer protection to Chinese merchant vessels passing through the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden, but the unprecedented deployment also had the strategic effects of burnishing the international image of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a contributor to international security and giving the PLAN a platform to hone its expeditionary capacity, especially in Africa, where the country has considerable political and economic interests. Since then, the Chinese have rotated more than a dozen task forces off the coast as part of ongoing patrols. The broader strategic nature of the Somali operation was underscored when a vessel taking part in the antipiracy operations was subsequently sent through the Suez Canal during the Libyan crisis of early 2011 in what was the PRC's first-ever operational deployment in the Mediterranean. This article seeks to examine the calculus behind Beijing's decision to send its warships on an antipiracy mission off Africa's eastern littoral, the political and strategic relevance of the deployment, the Chinese Navy's actual tactical and operational conduct, and the resulting implications for both African countries and outside powers, including the United States. It also examines the PLAN's new capabilities in relation to those that the land army (PLA) has developed through its decade-long experience with United Nations peacekeeping operations in Africa.