A PLA Navy soldier watches as Chinese citizens board the Linyi to be evacuated from Yemen.
On March 29, the Linyi, a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) missile frigate, evacuated the first 122 Chinese citizens and two foreign experts from Aden, Yemen to Djibouti as the situation in Yemen deteriorated—marking the first time PLAN ships were used to rescue citizens abroad (People’s Daily Online, March 30; Xinhua, March 30). The next day, the Linyi’s sister ship, the Weifang, also rescued another 449 Chinese citizens from Al-Hodayda (Xinhua, March 30). Speaking at the Boao Forum in Hainan on March 29, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said “there are 590 Chinese nationals in Yemen and the Chinese government launched the evacuation plan Thursday evening [March 26], when Saudi Arabia and its allies launched airstrikes in Yemen. The evacuation will help ensure Chinese nationals come back to China safely” (China Daily, March 29).
The crisis in Yemen escalated this January when Houthi rebels took control of the capital, Sana’a, forcing the president to leave the capital in February, and by early March they had taken large parts of the country. In response to the president fleeing to Saudi Arabia via Oman on March 26, Saudi Arabia was able to build a 10 country coalition, with a reported 150,000 troops, seemingly overnight to begin an air campaign against the rebels. Describing the scene in the capital, Xinhua said residents had fled and businesses were closed (Xinhua, March 29). The instability in Yemen represents a challenge to what was a deepening relationship between Beijing and Sana’a, after Defense Minister Muhammad Nasir Ahmad and President Abdu Rabbu Mansur Hadi visited Beijing in September and November 2013, respectively, to “[seek] cooperative relations” (Xinhua, September 23, 2013; CTTV, November 13, 2013; China Brief, July 7, 2006). However, the Chinese government had already begun pulling back on some projects in the country in January (Yemen Post, January 1).
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