China Cruises the East China Sea

How should we put this into context? Perhaps as the way China conducts a Coast Guard cruise?

China sent out a large patrol fleet, including China's most advanced maritime patrol ship Haixun 31, to the East China Sea for a five-day mission on Tuesday.

Deputy director-general of Zhejiang Maritime Safety Administration He Yipei said that the fleet will consist of two other large patrol ships Haixun 113 and Haixun 111 and over 60 small vessels.

He noted that the bureau will also send 50 maritime vehicles and over 1000 personnel in the large campaign on clamping down on accidents off the Zhejiang coast.

The fleet will sail 17,000 sea miles in five days en route of Zhoushan Islands, Dachen Island of Taizhou and the Chunxiao gasfield.

We will be looking into this in more depth later, because I'm very curious what "50 maritime vehicles and over 1000 personnel" will do to "clamp down" on "accidents".

Has the US Coast Guard ever conducted a patrol like this involving more than 60 ships? If it has, I can't recall it happening. Imagine the reaction of Hugo Chavez if the Coast Guard deployed 60+ vessels to the oil regions of the Caribbean Sea.

China never seems to do anything small. They either don't do anything, or make it look like overkill.