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16 September 2011 ~ View Comments
PLAN Hospital Ship “Peace Ark” (“和平方舟”号医院船) Embarks on 3-Month Navy Medical Service Mission in Caribbean

China’s first purpose-built hospital ship, the 10,000-ton Type 920 Daishandao (岱山岛号)-class Peace Ark (和平方舟/AHH 866), has left on a three-month voyage. It will call on ports in Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Costa Rica as part of “Harmonious Mission -2011” (和谐使命—2011). This is China’s first operational naval mission to the Caribbean, and an interesting new use of its increasing naval “soft power.”

In summer 2010, Peace Ark treated over 15,500 people in Indian Ocean and African nations. This is part of a larger pattern in which China’s navy has projected power increasingly beyond the “Near Seas” (Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea) in the form of peacetime deployments that do not involve high-intensity military capabilities. Other examples include the deployment of:

    a frigate and military transport aircraft to safeguard the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Libya in February-March 2011
    nine (and counting) counter-piracy task forces to deter pirates in the Gulf of Aden since December 2008

These developments suggest increasing capabilities for the PLAN to further common security objectives, a trend that should be welcomed. In the unfortunate event of a U.S.-China conflict, maritime forces would be the most likely to be used against each other; yet they are also the most likely to encounter each other and work together in peacetime. The two nations’ navies and other maritime services have the opportunity, even the duty, to do what other services have not: establish a new and cooperative relationship. Given the unique nature of sea-based presence, port visits, diplomacy, and critical trade relations, maritime forces interact in peacetime differently from other services. For the U.S. and Chinese maritime forces, this generates many compatible and overlapping strategic priorities. Indeed, when seaborne bilateral trade is considered, the two nations already have a major maritime partnership, albeit one in which the military element lags far behind the commercial. Improved confidence and trust can most realistically be achieved piecemeal, in specific functional and geographic areas, with the best approach to direct efforts “from easier to harder,” “from non-traditional to traditional,” and “from further from China to nearer to China.”

http://www.andrewerickson.com/2011/09/plan-hospital-ship-peace-ark-embarks-on-3-month-navy-medical-service-mission-in-caribbean/