Beijing released its sixth biennial White Paper on China's National Defense Jan. 20 (not by accident on the day of U.S. President Barack Obama's inauguration). More than any one development or thrust, China's White Papers serve as mileposts tracking the modernization and reform of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Taken as a whole, the single most important milepost in the 2008 paper is the intellectual groundwork and justification for the expansion of Chinese military operations abroad. The white papers are qualitatively different from the Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China," in which the Pentagon articulates its own perceptions of Chinese military development (and whole sections that are often carried over verbatim from one year to the next). Given their publication in English, the white papers in part clearly serve as a message to the international community — especially the United States — signaling Beijing's intentions. They also serve to mold international perceptions of the PLA. Regardless of whether this white paper is widely read within the PLA as a guiding policy document, over the years white papers have proven to convey accurately many of the main thrusts of PLA development. Of particular note is the shift from the 2006 white paper, in which the emphasis was placed on cultural and educational reform within the military while improving the quality of personnel and their standard of living. These areas were then, and have continued to be, major areas of effort and reform. While the 2006 white paper was about more than that, the 2008 release shifts the emphasis in many ways to international involvement and operational experience. STRATFOR has been monitoring this development for some time, which fits squarely with the document's prolific use of MOOTW (an acronym for Military Operations Other Than War, encompassing everything from peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance to maritime security and counterpiracy operations). These two thrusts are deeply interrelated. This paper suggests that Beijing sees MOOTW as the avenue for international engagement through the exercise of its military abroad. Multinational and U.N.-authorized operations like the counterpiracy efforts off the coast of Somalia offer the PLA opportunities to deploy military force, enjoy the increased leverage and weight that such deployments offer and increase their perception not as a menacing force, but as a "responsible stakeholder." At the same time, it takes the PLA's development beyond the Chinese mainland and its territorial waters in a comprehensive way for the first time. The naval deployment to Somalia should be seen not as a publicity stunt or a one-off operation, but as a sign of things to come. In the years ahead, the PLA intends to be every bit as global in its operations as other world powers. Though Beijing is hardly equipped to compete directly with the United States in this regard, it can certainly aspire to match Russia's recent global presence. In doing so, it also integrates firsthand operational experience into PLA modernization. Simply put, the new white paper brings the last decade of deliberate and concerted military reform within the PLA into the open. There, amid real-world multinational operations, other powers will see firsthand what China has accomplished. Perhaps more important, the PLA will begin to refine and tailor the equipment and doctrines it has crafted behind closed doors to function in real-world situations. Its ships should therefore no longer be expected to spend quite so much time tied up in port.