Chinese military experts are engaging in a bit of exuberant backslapping over the naval evacuation not just of more than 600 Chinese citizens in Yemen, but of hundreds of other foreigners. It was the first time China had deployed warships to carry out such an evacuation, and the fact that so many people from other countries were welcomed on board and ferried to safety was seen as polishing the country’s image as a helpful hand in an international crisis.
“It is the new responsibility of a great power,” Zhu Feng, executive director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University, said on Wednesday. “China’s vision of the navy is decisively widening. When it is operating in international waters, it should shoulder international responsibility. It’s good, it’s good.”
The state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday that three Chinese Navy ships had evacuated 629 Chinese and 279 citizens of 15 other countries.
A China Central Television report on the evacuation of foreigners to Djibouti from Yemen.
By last weekend, fighting had intensified between Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi fighters who have seized the capital, Sana, and a Saudi-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the militants. China has temporarily closed its embassy in Sana and its consulate general in Aden.
The last group of Chinese left Yemen on Monday on the naval frigate Linyi. The ship, which carried 38 Chinese evacuees and 45 Sri Lankans, arrived in Djibouti on Tuesday after a 12-hour voyage, Xinhua reported. Another Chinese ship, the Weishanhu, arrived on Tuesday in Oman with nine Chinese evacuees and one from Japan.
Germans, Ethiopians and Pakistanis were among those evacuated by the Chinese. The Japanese government thanked China for inviting a Japanese tourist to join the evacuation.
“We have conveyed our gratitude to the Chinese government,” the Japanese chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said at a news conference on Tuesday. The Chinese had taken the Japanese tourist on board voluntarily and had not been requested to do so by the Japanese government, Mr. Suga said.
A commentary carried by Xinhua on Monday said the evacuation supported Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s statement in March that China is “on the same boat” as the rest of the world. “With an able and helpful China, the world will have more resources to maneuver through disasters and crisis,” it said.
The operation made use of some enduring ties between the Chinese consul general in Aden and the local governor. One of China’s frigates was granted permission to dock at Aden only after Consul General Pan Zhinan allowed a relative of Gov. Abdel-Aziz bin Habtoor to board, the commander of the Chinese operation, Jiang Guoping, told CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster.
When a ship pulls into a country to evacuate its own citizens from danger, there are no fixed rules on whether it has a legal responsibility to rescue other foreigners as well, several Western military experts said. But it certainly is expected that people stranded with little hope of escaping a conflict should be taken on board, they said.
“They’re getting bigger and more professional,” said a United States Navy official of the Chinese operation, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists. “It’s good for them and good for us because it binds them into the international system.”
Yufan Huang contributed research.