Article Posted on : - Jan 01, 2010

BEIJING (BNS): China has ruled out the possibility of setting up its naval base in the Gulf of Aden saying that it would continue to have the present supply regime to support anti-piracy missions in the region.

“Some countries have set up overseas supply bases (but) the Chinese fleet is currently supplied at sea and through regular docking (in the Gulf of Aden region),” China Daily said on Friday, quoting a Defence Ministry statement.

A top Chinese naval official, in an interview posted in the Defence Ministry's website on Thursday, had said that China could set up a permanent naval base to support ships on anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, thereby raising the prospect that China could build foreign bases elsewhere.

“We are not saying we need our navy everywhere in order to fulfill our international commitments.

“We are saying to fulfill our international commitments, we need to strengthen our supply capacity,” Yin Zhuo, a retired admiral and senior researcher at the navy's Equipment Research Centre, had said.

China presently relies on a French naval base to dock and resupply its vessels. It had dispatched four flotillas to the region last year to fight sea pirates.