China's People's Liberation Army (PLA)
kicks off a grand maritime ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of its
navy at 6 p.m. Monday off the coast of the eastern city of Qingdao,China's
Shandong Province, April 20, 2009. (Xinhua/Li Xuanliang) Photo
Gallery>>>
BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese People's
Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was making final preparations for Thursday's
international fleet parade in the eastern port of Qingdao to celebrate the 60th
anniversary of its founding.
The parade will feature 21 navy ships from other
countries.
Zhang Xiaolin, a professor at the Strategic Research
Institute under the Nanjing-based Navy Command College, said the parade was set
to open an extraordinary chapter in the PLAN's foreign relations, and the PLAN
was stepping up efforts to engage the international community.
Major-General Zhang Shiping, a researcher with the
PLA's Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing, agreed.
He said inviting foreign navies to China is a process
of communication and exchange.
"More importantly, it lays the foundations for future
cooperation and exchange with foreign navies," said Zhang Shiping.
Among the important foreign military officers to
participate in the parade in Qingdao is U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral
Gary Roughead, who was the highest-ranking U.S. officer to visit China this
year.
Roughead said earlier in Beijing that he believed
military-to-military relation was important to the broad U.S-China ties.
He said during his talks with PLAN Commander Adm. Wu
Shengli on Saturday that they exchanged views on enhancing navy-to-navy
cooperation and both navies' operations off the coast of Somalia.
In fact, "inviting in and going out", which has been
used to describe China's foreign trade, has been increasingly applied by the
Chinese army, especially by the PLAN, in its relations with foreign military.
In November 1985, a Chinese flotilla consisting of destroyer Hefei and supply ship Fengcang visited Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It was the PLAN's first foreign visit.
