WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- On April 29, the Chinese navy began its first ever patrols with a foreign ally, sending ships to patrol with Vietnamese warships in the Beibu Gulf.
China's Ministry of National Defense announced that the joint patrols were intended to strengthen joint cooperation and maintain security of fishing fleets and oil exploration in Beibu Gulf.
Beibu Gulf is more familiarly know in the West as the Gulf of Tonkin. The waters are shallow, mostly less than 200 feet deep, and lie between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea.
China.org.cn reported Monday the joint patrols are a result of meetings in October 2005 between Chinese Defense Minister Cao Ganchuan and Pham Van Tra, Vietnam's Defense Minister. Cao is also vice chairman of the China's Central Military Commission and a state councilor.
Central Military Commission member and People's Liberation Army Navy commander Zhang Dingfa, and People's Liberation Army General Staff deputy chief Xiong Guangkai also attended the discussions.
Both Kazakhstan and Russia have been vying to sell their oil to China, the world's second-largest energy importer.
Kazakhstan has won the immediate race to export oil to China. On May 1 Kazinform news agency reported that on April 30 the first shipment of Kazakh oil arrived at China's border town of Alashankou in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region via the 1,865-mile, Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline. The pipeline extends from Kazakhstan's Caspian Atyrau port via Kenkiyak and Atasu to China's Dushanzi oil refinery in Xinjiang.
The pipeline began loading last December 15 when Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev inaugurated pumping at the Atasu terminal along the new Atasu-Alashankou pipeline at KazTransOil's central control center.
The pipeline represents China's first cross-border, overland oil supply from other countries. The pipeline's initial capacity is 10 million tons annually, but Chinese and Kazakh specialists will eventually expand the line's capability to 20-30 million tons.
The relationship is mutually beneficial. Kazakhstan is interested in China as Asia's largest and growing oil market, while for China Kazakhstan is currently the largest oil producer in Central Asia with capacities for massive further expansion.
China underwrote the pipeline's entire cost of over $800 million. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev first suggested the project in 1997. Kazakhstan is also planning to lay a natural gas pipeline alongside the new pipeline.
The pipeline represents a significant amelioration of China's rising energy needs, which are project to rise between 2010 and 2020 from 355 million tons to 500 million tons annually.
In light of the pipeline's success, other Central Asian nations are considering developing China as an export market. In early April Turkmen president Sapamurat Niyazov said during his visit to China that Turkmenistan is willing to construct a gas pipeline to China and invited China to explore for oil in Turkmenistan's Caspian sector.
Kuwait's Undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior General Mosaad Al-Mashaan asserts that Gulf Cooperation Council members must intensify their efforts to halt illicit trafficking in weapons and explosives in the region.
KUNA news agency reported on May 1 that Al-Mashaan told journalists after the opening of the 15th GCC meeting of weapons and explosives officials, that the conference will assist members in sharing expertise to combat the problem.
The three-day conference includes several workshops, seminars on the issue of regional explosives and field visits.
Al-Mashaan is also the Kuwaiti government's Assistant on Special Security Affairs
