Exchange and cooperation deepen
A fleet consisted of "Qingdao" missile destroyer and "Taicang" integrated supply ship
started from Qingdao on May 15, 2002, and after a four-month tour completed the navy''s first global voyage by traveling some 30,000 nautical miles and calling ten ports of ten
countries.
The two vessels went across the Malacca Strait, Dardanelles Strait, Gibraltar Strait, Suez Canal and Panama Canal and sailed through the Red Sea, Aegean Sea, Mediterranean, Black Sea, Arabian Sea, Caribbean Sea, and along them visited Singapore, Egypt, Turkey, Ukraine, Greece, Portugal, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and France.
Since 2005,
exchange and cooperation between the Chinese navy and its foreign counterparts have further deepened. Four fleets have been dispatched for bilateral or multilateral joint rescue exercises with a dozen countries including the U.S., Pakistan, India, Thailand and Singapore.
Embracing friends from all parts of the world
With ships sailing out the Chinese navy also opened door to guests from all continents.
Following a French destroyer''s visit to Shanghai on April 1, 1978, the first port call by a western ship, more than a hundred fleets in over 300 vessels have visited China''s Shanghai, Qingdao, Zhanjiang and Guangzhou. They came from over fifty countries including the U.S, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Columbia from the other side of the Pacific, Britain and France form the other side of the Atlantic, and also from Italy, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Russia, Pakistan, India, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, the ROK and Singapore.
Exchange of port calls has been among the most active diplomatic activities by Chinese armies and is thus dubbed "handshakes across oceans".