07 May 2015

Editorial: Why Are Chinese Frigates in the Black Sea?

By Ankit Panda

China’s frigates may be in the Black Sea on a mission that’s part symbolism, part marketing.

Marking a new milestone for China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), two guided missile frigates, reportedly the Linyi and the Weifang, entered the Black Sea on Monday. USNI News broke the story, accompanying it with photographs of the Linyi passing through the Bosphorous on May 4. The pair of frigates are en route to Russia’s naval base at Novorossiysk where they will arrive on May 9 and remain until Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Moscow to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe.

The two frigates are in the Black Sea after participating with Russia in the first joint Russia-China naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea. (The Linyi, as some Diplomat readers may recall, drew headlines last month after being used to evacuate Chinese and non-Chinese citizens alike from Yemen amid a Saudi-led bombing campaign there.)

The visit of the two frigates could have commercial intentions as well. A report in the Taiwan-based Want China Times last week made the case that the PLAN was using the Mediterranean exercise as an opportunity to show off the ability of its Type 054A Jiangkai II-class frigates for the Russian Navy. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s surface ship-building capability is known to have taken a great hit.

Read the full story at The Diplomat