China said that it will hold a naval training with Saudi Arabia in October. China’s Defense Ministry made the announcement Thursday.
“Based on the international military cooperation plan and the consensus reached by the two sides, China and Saudi Arabia will hold ‘Blue Sword-2023’ joint naval special operations training in Zhanjiang, south China’s Guangdong province, in October,” said Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense. Zhanjiang is the headquarters of China’s South Sea Fleet and an important base for operations in the South China Sea.
Adam Lucente at Al-Monitor first reported the announcement yesterday and noted that it is the “latest sign of the strengthening ties between the kingdom and the People’s Republic.” China’s Ministry of National Defense spokesman said that the joint training will focus on overseas maritime counterterrorism operations and “cover such subjects as sniping tactic, boat driving, helicopter landing, and joint rescue.”
Beijing said it was the second type of training like this with the Saudis and called it part of the deepening the “pragmatic and friendly cooperation between the two militaries and improve the troops’ real-combat training level.”
Blue Sword last took place in 2019. It included a joint training exercise between the naval special forces of China and Saudi Arabia and was held at King Faisal Naval Base in Jeddah in November 2019. At the time China said it was designed to enhance the mutual trust and friendly relations between the two navies. The drill ran for three weeks, which is a long time for training of that type.
The report from China at the time said that it took place with “Chinese participants coming from the Jiaolong Commandos under the PLA Marine Corps, and their Saudi Arabian counterparts from the Special Forces of the Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF).” Saudi Arabia’s Vice Admiral Faleh bin Abdulrahman Al-Faleh welcomed the Chinese forces at a ceremony for the 2019 training. At the time he was the commander of the Western Fleet of the Saudi navy.
Commander of the Saudi Arabia Special Naval Security Group Rear Admiral Saleh bin Ahmed Al-Ghamdi took part in the conclusion of the drill.
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China has sought to play an increased role in the region in the last several years. For instance, China helped broker reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia this year. China recently hosted Syrian regime leader Bashar Al-Assad, a rare trip for Assad outside the region. China has also focused heavily on relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, including an important summit in 2022.
Naval forces of China have played a role in the Middle East over the last 13 years as part of the Chinese navy’s role in the Gulf of Aden, as part of various task forces that perform escort missions.
“On December 26, 2008, in accordance with relevant resolution of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and with the approval of the Chinese State Council and Central Military Commission (CMC), a Chinese PLA naval escort taskforce comprising the guided-missile destroyers Haikou (Hull 171) and Wuhan (Hull169), as well as the comprehensive supply ship Weishanhu (Hull 887), set out from a military port in Sanya, south China’s Hainan province, to perform escort missions at the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somalian coast,” China noted.
In 2009, China and Russia carried out a joint maritime anti-piracy exercise called Peace Blue Shield 2009. China said this was its first joint drill with a foreign task force in the mission’s waters, indicating that this was one of the key ways that China became involved in joint naval drills in waters off the coast of Middle Eastern countries. China has said it has escorted 6,000 vessels off the coast of Somalia and in the waters off Aden as part of the escort mission which sees various ships rotate in and out of the task force several times a year.
In March 2023, China also conducted a drill called Security Belt 2023 with Russia and Iran in the Gulf of Oman. This was a follow-up of two other joint drills with Russia and Iran, bringing together two countries that are adversaries of the West. The US considers China and Russia as near-peer adversaries, for instance. The Security Belt drills have included destroyers from Iran, Russia and China which have operated off Iran’s port of Chabahar.
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