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

The SCO “Peace Mission” combined exercises
that have been conducted to date have mostly involved
the Army and Air Force, perhaps because
there is not much of a role for the Navy in dealing
with the security concerns shared by the members of
the organization. The PLAN has been left to seek out
partners with whom to conduct combined exercises.
China’s involvement in international naval exercises
began with an unprecedented move in 1998 when the
PLA Navy accepted an invitation from Washington
to send PLAN officers to observe “RIMPAC 98,” the
major multinational Pacific Ocean naval exercise. 70
Little movement was seen, however, until May 2002,
when the PLAN sent observers to the “Cobra Gold”
joint military exercises staged by the United States,
Thailand, and Singapore. 71 China’s 2002 Defense White
Paper provided a clue that the situation was beginning
to change when it stated, “China intends to selectively
and gradually participate in more multilateral joint
military exercises.”
The international exercises in which the PLAN has
participated have primarily consisted of search and
rescue exercises (SAREXs), but a few exercises have involved
antipiracy and counter-terrorism training that
included live firing against surface targets. 72 Although
the PLAN has conducted its own intra-service SAR-
EXs, it has gradually added several SAREX “firsts”
with foreign navies:
• In December 1998, a PLAN Houjian-class missile
patrol boat from the Hong Kong Garrison
participated for the first time in a SAREX organized
by Hong Kong and the United States,
Brunei, Singapore, Thailand, and Macau sent
observers to the exercise. According to media
reports, “The goal of the exercise was to pro-
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