From the dockside of the Yalong Bay base the three decorated vessels that weighed anchor and slipped off into the tropical seas yesterday afternoon might have been any normal coastal patrol.

For Beijing – and for governments watching across the globe – it was the beginning of a new era in world naval history. The interests of China now extend far beyond its borders but this was the first time in more than five centuries that it has travelled outside its territorial waters to defend them.

The last time a Chinese military fleet set sail for anywhere as far afield as Africa with the prospect of a fight at the other end, the ships were 400ft (122m) wooden junks and the commander was a Ming dynasty court eunuch called Zheng He.

The Chinese ships – two high-tech, heavily armed destroyers and a supply vessel – will spend the next ten days bound for the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia, which has been the scene of more than 100 hijackings within the past year.

There have been seven attacks involving Chinese ships or crew since January and the pirate onslaught show few signs of abating – pirates have made an estimated $30 million (£20 million) this year. On Christmas Day a German military helicopter rescued an Egyptian ship from a violent hijacking.

The ships will spend three months patrolling the seas, protecting Chinese merchant ships and the flow of strategic cargo – chiefly crude oil and minerals – through the region. Critically, and in a significant and historic break with policy, the Chinese ships are travelling on the assumption that they will engage in combat with the enemy.

“It’s the first time we go abroad to protect our strategic interests armed with military force,” Wu Shengli, the commander of the Chinese Navy, said at the launch on Hainan island. He described the deployment as an international humanitarian mission.

Lieutenant-Commander Xie Zengling said: “If the pirates make direct threats to the warships or the vessels we escort, the fleet will take counter-measures.” His special forces members could “handle several enemies with their bare hands”, he added.

The ships, which have a crew of 800, will join a swelling armada of ships from navies around the world – all deployed in recent weeks after the United Nations called for a sterner response to the escalation of piracy. The international and cooperative nature of the Aden deployment however, defence analysts said, does not disguise the significance of yesterday’s departure.

In an era when China is playing a much larger global role in commerce and politics, the deployment redefines it as a nation prepared to spill blood protecting its diverse stakes in the world economy. Some also see it as yet another step on China’s path to superpower status. This week, in a rare press conference, senior Defence Ministry figures said for the first time that China was seriously considering building its first aircraft carrier – a development that has been rumoured since the 1980s. “An aircraft carrier is a symbol of the country’s overall national strength as well as the competitiveness of the country’s force,” said Colonel Huang Xueping.

The prospect of a Chinese aircraft carrier has obsessed defence analysts in Washington and around the Asia region where China is engaged in a series of territorial and resource disputes with its neighbours.

Japan, which has already expressed concerns over China’s growing military spending, showed clear signs that it was rattled by Beijing’s deployment to Aden. Taro Aso, the Prime Minister, yesterday ordered his Defence Ministry to find a way to also deploy naval vessels to fight pirates off Somalia.

The apparent eagerness by Beijing to join the nations represented in Aden – including Britain, the US and Russia – is also thought to derive from rivalry with India, whose ships have shouldered much of the burden of fighting piracy in the region.

Sailing out of the past

— Zheng He is also known as Cheng Ho, or the Three Jewel Eunuch Admiral

— He was castrated at the age of 10, when Ming troops went to his village to crush Mongol rebels

— After being captured he was sent to the army, and rose through the ranks to become Chief Eunuch and admiral

— In 28 years he sailed to 37 countries. More than 1,100 treasure ships, some more than 400ft in length, were constructed for his seven voyages

— Some historians suggest that he was the inspiration for Sinbad the Sailor. Another theory suggests that he discovered the New World in the 1420s, 70 years before Columbus

Sources: Columbia Encyclopaedia; Encyclopaedia of World Biography; Dictionary of World History; bbc.co.uk

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