China is considering deploying navy vessels for escort duty to the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia to help combat piracy, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said Dec. 16 during a U.N. Security Council ministerial meeting on the issue of piracy off Somalia. For China, this would mark an expansion of its emerging role in international security as a “big power” and supporter of multilateralism. It also offers a unique training opportunity for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in dealing with the logistical challenges of a foreign deployment. As mainly a land power, China has spent little time through much of its history worrying about a significant naval capability. China’s resources and markets were all largely accessible via land routes (the Silk Road being perhaps the most famous but by no means the only example). China’s massive size, long land borders and domestic defense requirements for managing its various ethnicities placed development of a navy very low as a budgetary priority. That all changed by the 1980s, as China started to become much more integrated into, and thus dependent upon, the international economy for raw materials and export markets — many of which were accessible primarily by sea. This forced Beijing to rethink its naval priorities, and it continues to struggle trying to find the optimal balance between securing its land-based interests and defending its sea-lanes. As China debated the role and development of the PLAN, it also sought to manage its international image. The “rise of China” was a catchphrase popular in the 1990s. For Beijing, it meant the emergence of China as an international player in the new post-Cold War international order. For China’s critics, it was a signpost warning of an increasingly threatening and expansionist China. Beijing phased out the “rise” descriptor and engaged in a more subtle effort to alter perceptions and thus reduce pressures from countries like the United States, which were starting to focus on pre-empting China as an emerging military challenge. With the al Qaeda attacks in the United States in 2001, Beijing found the perfect opportunity to defuse tensions and promote cooperation rather than confrontation with Washington. China also took a more active role in land-based international peacekeeping operations to show its new cooperative spirit and global role. But this did not weaken the internal debate in China over the future role of the PLAN, and the naval evolution continued. In recent years, the PLAN has become more active both in international port calls and in testing and fielding new systems. At the same time, there has been a simultaneous move to develop and enhance the coastal navy (including an emerging amphibious warfare capability with a more expeditionary focus) and to at least begin training in blue-water deployments. There are a great many factors that underlie a navy with a meaningful capability to deploy overseas. When the PLAN guided-missile destroyer Qingdao and an auxiliary sailed to San Diego in 2006, the visit was largely a goodwill gesture. But it also represented a PLAN attempt to gain experience with basic naval operations far afield. Deploying to the coast of Somalia would be another step in that evolution, and a far more significant one. Sustaining patrol and security operations demands complex logistics, from refueling and resupply to the basic maintenance and repair of vessels and auxiliary equipment. In the event of an accident or a run-in with pirates, would a Chinese vessel carry out repairs at sea, head to a nearby port, perhaps in Pakistan, or return to China? Would there be another ship ready to replace it should it leave station? Although anti-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa are not yet particularly intense in terms of direct combat, the expenditure of ammunition would also become a supply consideration. Moreover, the Chinese ships will have to deal with interoperability issues. They will not be operating alone, but in an area awash with naval vessels from around the world, from the Untied States to India, that are also carrying out patrol and anti-piracy operations. Effective communications and logistics among these various naval forces and with civilian shipping in the region will be essential. The exact makeup of the PLAN anti-piracy squadron is still unclear, as is the degree to which it will attempt to sustain itself and the degree to which it will rely on international assistance or call on nearby ports. Beijing is calling for U.N. oversight and control of peacekeeping operations in Somalia, and by extension of anti-piracy efforts off the coast. But at the moment, such centralized control remains elusive. In recent years, peacekeeping operations in Somalia have fallen under the auspices of the African Union (AU), whose approximately 3,000 Ugandan and Burundian troops are stretched thin and unable to provide effective security in Somalia. (while Ethiopia has maintained thousands of its own troops under its own unilateral, i.e., non-AU, command). The AU has called for the United Nations to boost or even take over its operations. Nonetheless, should China send an anti-piracy task force to the waters off the Somalian coast, the PLAN will be presented with some very real opportunities for on-the-job training, covering everything from logistics far from home and combat against seaborne opponents to communications and joint operations with other, more experienced navies. Additionally, the PLAN will very likely monitor the way NATO (and especially U.S.) warships communicate with each other and with their shipborne helicopters. Like Japan’s ongoing refueling operations in support of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, a Chinese naval deployment to Somalia would give the PLAN a chance to learn and practice new skills, all under the banner of internationalism. The lessons it learns will add much to discussions at home on the future of the Chinese navy.