Why the Chinese Navy is in the Mediterranean
On Thursday, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) frigates Linyi and Weifang left the Black Sea along with a Russian #Navy guided missile corvette to begin the first ever round of Chinese and Russian naval exercises in the #Mediterranean.
The exercise — Joint Sea 2015 — is mostly a sign of a growing security relationship between #Moscow and #Beijing, and an attempt to signal the two powers’ ascendance on the global stage.
Besides, it also follows after nearly two years of increased Russian naval activity not only in the Mediterranean, but also the Baltic Sea, the High North, and the Black Sea. However, China also has its own reasons for operating in the Mediterranean, and the current exercise is far from the first time the Chinese military has operated there.
For China, the broader Mediterranean region is of real interest in terms of both energy security and trade.....
▻http://news.usni.org/2015/05/14/why-the-chinese-navy-is-in-the-mediterranean
#army #china #russia