Chinese Warships In Persian Gulf For First Time Since 2010
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Jan 24, 2017
In a deployment not seen in seven years, three Chinese warships including a guided-missile destroyer warship embarked on a tour of Gulf Arab states for the first time since 2010 in what al Arabiya has called Beijing’s “desire to play a bigger role on the global stage.”
The three Chinese vessels arrived in Qatar’s capital Doha on Saturday following a visit to the Saudi port city of Jeddah, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
While China’s navy regularly tours the world and its ships patrol off the coasts of Yemen and Somalia as part of international anti-piracy operations, such visits to Gulf Arab states, where both the U.S. and Britain have naval bases, are less common. In 2014, China’s navy visited Iran for the first time to take part in joint naval exercises with Saudi Arabia’s regional arch-rival.
Beijing, which relies on the Middle East for oil, has tended to leave Middle Eastern diplomacy to the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – the United States, Britain, France and Russia. As reported yesterday, for the first time in history, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia as China’s primary source of oil imports.
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