The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

Admiral, so it is a genuinely multilateral initiative.
Unlike other approaches, CTF-151 offers the flexibility
needed to combat pirates: it allows for deployment of
assets to sea areas where they are most needed, and
withdrawal of assets from areas where they are not
needed. At least 10 of the 14 nations that have deployed
vessels to fight piracy in the Gulf of Aden have
participated in CTF 150 and/or CTF-151; this is the
vast majority. Perhaps most importantly, it meets general
principles for cooperation with the United States
in multilateral frameworks, as outlined by Rear Admiral
Yang Yi: “all activities should be strictly within
the framework of U.N. authorization and consistent
with international laws; the sovereignty and territory
of other countries must be respected and the use of
force in order to intervene in a country’s affairs shall
be avoided; the target of the activity should be nontraditional
security threats . . .; efforts should be made to
increase mutual understanding and promote deeper
cooperation. . . .” 135 With all these advantages, such an
approach is widely accepted and is worthy of careful
consideration. The United States and other participating
nations would certainly welcome the PLAN into
CTF-151.
What, then, are the prospects for China joining
CTF-151 or a related cooperative action? One academic
and retired PLA officer suggested optimistically that
the United States publicly invite China to join CTF-
151. 136 But another individual of similar background
was more measured in his assessment:
China knows that the U.S. is willing to lead, and the
PLAN is prepared operationally, but China is not ready
politically. The overall political climate is not ready:
there are still misunderstandings and mistrust resulting
from many issues, especially Taiwan. Differences in po-
326