PLA has spent 10 years to build a blue-water navy: US expert

Christopher Sharman, a former US assistant navy attache to Beijing and a student at National Defense University, discussed the five major steps China has taken to establish a global navy since 2004 in his new article written for the Washington-based National Interest magazine.

Between 2004 and 2006, the People's Liberation Army Navy kept itself within the region known as the First Island Chain in the Pacific, extending from Alaska to the Philippines, to avoid direct confrontation with the United States and its security partners.

But the PLA Navy enhanced training in disciplines that enabled it to take steps toward conducting operations further from China's coast into the "blue water" of the open ocean, he wrote.

Read more