Military Camp Observations | The "Analytical Answer Sheet" Written on Deep-Blue Wake Lines

On the Gulf of Aden, after that after-action review… ■ Du Jiangfan, Tan Zhenzhen

On a morning over the Gulf of Aden, on the flight deck of the PLA Navy's CNS Tangshan, the roar of engines filled the air as rotor wash sent a mist of water droplets soaking the flight-deck crew's combat uniforms, and the helicopter settled firmly onto the deck.

"This forward reconnaissance and identification run—we confirmed the target almost a full minute faster than last time," pilot Xiao Zhu said, removing his helmet and turning to the aircraft commander beside him. "Looks like those corrective measures we set at the after-action review actually work."

Back in his cabin, Xiao Zhu entered the day's data in his "escort diary." Flipping back through the entries, reading through set after set of flight data, Xiao Zhu understood that the steadily shrinking times traced back to that "unconventional" (不按常理出牌) critique-style after-action review.

Last November, with the safe arrival of the Panamanian cargo vessel Nanyan Gem at a sea area in the western Gulf of Aden, the PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force successfully completed the first escort mission conducted under its independent command.

As the radar return of the Nanyan Gem gradually faded, CNS Tangshan turned to execute follow-on tasks. In the combat operations center, lights blazed as an after-action review originally scheduled for thirty minutes stretched to nearly an hour.

During the escort, the task force had adapted to changing sea-area weather conditions and the actual circumstances of the vessels, employing both accompanying escort and relay escort methods. During key sea areas and key time periods, it had also dispatched helicopters for aerial patrol. The entire mission recorded zero incidents and zero errors. The crew of the Nanyan Gem placed a special call to express their sincere gratitude to the task force.

By convention, the successful completion of a first independent escort mission should have been an occasion to summarize achievements and boost morale. But when the after-action review opened, the task force commander went straight to the point: "The achievements aren't going anywhere—they'll still be there. The problems, if we don't address them, won't go away either. Today, we talk more about problems and less about achievements."

The moment he finished speaking, the operations center fell silent. One by one, participants worked through the detailed shortfalls: coordination and handoff between the helicopter's forward reconnaissance element and the ship was not tight enough; some younger officers and enlisted personnel were not sufficiently proficient in emergency response procedures; there was still room to optimize the special operations detachment's security deployment. Although none of these issues had affected the completion of the current escort mission, they bore directly on the task force's subsequent capability development.

"After the escort mission ends, what will we have left behind?" Even before setting sail, the Party Committee of the PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force had turned this question over repeatedly.

An escort task force that safely delivers merchant vessels to their destinations without incident has fulfilled its mission; a team temporarily assembled and temporarily thrown together just needs to avoid accidents and return safely, and that counts as success—the Party Committee had long sensed these attitudes among the officers and enlisted personnel.

The task force's personnel came from different organic units and would return to their original posts when the escort mission ended. How could a task force assembled from multiple units with a finite mission cycle both hold firm to the escort mission and complete its phased tasks, while also discarding the temporary-assignment mentality (临时心态) and laying a solid foundation for long-term development? The task force commander acknowledged candidly that from the moment the lines were cast off in October 2025, the task force had been facing a major examination (大考) on the question of how to view performance and achievement (政绩观).

"What is temporary is the organizational structure and the tour of duty; what is long-term is the mission and the responsibility." The task force commander pointed to the Gulf of Aden on the nautical chart and looked out at all the officers and enlisted personnel attending the after-action review. "The task force has a finite mission timeline, but there is no rest stop on the road of combat-capability building. Every additional detail we dig into today, every additional shortfall we make up today, makes the foundation of far-seas escort one degree more solid."

In response to the identified problems, the task force established corrective measures on the spot. In the days that followed, Xiao Zhu and his comrades stood their watches by day and worked overtime at night to review procedures, optimize response plans, and conduct targeted supplementary training. What had originally been a single quick escort after-action review became a real-world assault on hard problems (实战攻坚) under the banner of "a temporary task force planning for the long term."

The helicopter crew, drawing on escort realities, refined their plans for covert reconnaissance and ship-helicopter joint security operations. The special operations detachment, focusing on escort security details, optimized position deployment procedures and improved emergency response speed. Veteran senior enlisted leaders shared without reservation the experience and techniques accumulated over multiple long-range voyages, personally coaching younger comrades in hands-on operational skills. There were no grand gestures, no flashy highlights—officers and enlisted personnel settled in and worked each detail into place, shored up each shortfall until it was solid.

The test came without warning. Shortly afterward, the task force received an escort request from the Chinese-flagged cargo vessel Linhai Hope. Learning that the vessel had a slow speed and low freeboard, the task force proactively proposed providing escort through a combination of safety monitoring and accompanying escort.

During the transit, Xiao Zhu once again flew the helicopter forward on patrol and security. When the optimized procedures were put into use, the mission was again completed successfully—but he was pleasantly surprised to find that ship-aircraft communications were smoother and that documenting suspicious targets was more efficient.

The task force escorted the Linhai Hope safely to a sea area in the Gulf of Aden, and at the moment of parting, the captain and all crew members put pen to paper and wrote a letter of thanks titled "Though the Paper Is Short, the Sentiment Runs Deep—An Expression of Respect": "This escort experience has given us the most genuine and vivid understanding of 'a strong motherland.' It is not the numbers in the news, not the language in the reports—it is the 'Chinese coordinate' we could find in an instant when we encountered danger in foreign waters; it is the confidence that lets us tell foreign sailors with pride, 'We have the Chinese Navy escorting us'…"

Radar operator Zhang Miaosen also wrote in his escort diary: "I used to think a temporary task force only needed to hold the line for the present and complete the mission. Now I understand: a temporary task force has a temporary mission, but it also carries a long-term responsibility."

In the space between breaking down and building up, the measuring stick of the performance-and-achievement view (政绩观) grew ever clearer. "Even a temporary organization must plan for the long term and must do substantive work that lays foundations, benefits the future, and serves those who come after." This conviction has become the shared understanding of every officer and enlisted member of the 48th Escort Task Force.

The "Analytical Answer Sheet" Written on Deep-Blue Wake Lines

—A News Investigation into the PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force's Cultivation and Practice of a Correct View of Performance and Achievement (政绩观)

■ Sun Gangzheng, Du Jiangfan

[Photo caption: The PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force escorts the cargo vessel Nanyan Gem through the Gulf of Aden. Photo by Du Jiangfan.]

Not "My" Achievement, but "Our" Relay

How does an escort task force discard short-term thinking? How does an escort mission leave behind a lasting record of achievement? This is the examination question that the PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force—assembled from multiple vessels and multiple units—had to confront from the moment it set sail.

To establish the right measuring stick, misconceptions first had to be broken down. Some officers and enlisted personnel raised the point: "We've been doing escort missions for so many years—how much more achievement can we create?" Others admitted frankly: "Even the most standout achievement fades once we're back."

The Party Committee put these attitudes on the table: "Let's start by asking ourselves three questions: What is the mission of escort operations? When our superiors entrust us with three warships and hundreds of officers and enlisted personnel, what kind of answer sheet do they most hope we will turn in? Can the work we do today withstand the test of actual combat and the test of history?"

The three questions left the Party Committee members present in deep reflection.

"We are the relay runners of the escort mission, not passersby." The Party Committee reached a consensus: they must both accomplish the current escort mission and carry forward the escort spirit, accumulate far-seas experience, and forge a hardened work style—taking responsibility for the mission, for the officers and enlisted personnel, and for follow-on tasks.

A thematic education campaign centered on the theme of "integrated organization, integrated effort, integrated spirit" (合编、合力、合心) was broadly launched. There was no dais, no prepared speeches. Officers and enlisted personnel from more than twenty different units brought their stools and gathered in circles on the flight deck, in the mess, and at their battle stations to speak freely.

Among the materials circulated was a photograph that drew crowds of onlookers: in December 2008, the PLA Navy's first escort task force set out for the Gulf of Aden, opening a new chapter in the PLA Navy's overseas defense of national interests. In the photograph, Chinese sailors aboard an escorted vessel stood in formation on deck, waving warmly toward the motherland's warship, a banner behind them bearing eight characters: 感谢祖国、祖国万岁 ("Thank the Motherland, Long Live the Motherland").

"This yellowed photograph is the most vivid historical footnote to the relay race of the escort mission." When the education session ended, a veteran senior enlisted leader wrote these words in his "escort diary."

"The experience we use today was left to us by those who came before; what we leave behind today will be used by those who come after." The task force commander said: "Escort operations are not a solo sprint—they are a relay race, one baton passed to the next."

From individual thoughts to collective mission, from immediate tasks to long-term legacy, gradually the complaints grew fewer and the shared understanding grew greater.

"Generation after generation of officers and enlisted personnel have relayed their way to the Gulf of Aden—who exactly did we come for? Whose ships are we escorting? For whom are we building this record of achievement? That question is the first lesson in viewing performance and achievement (政绩) along the deep-blue wake." The commander told this reporter that the task force integrated the study and education on cultivating and practicing a correct view of performance and achievement with education on the escort mission, and that this lesson would run from the moment of departure through the end of the mission. The certificate of completion for this lesson is the officers' and enlisted personnel's own conscious sense of being "relay runners" and the responsibility that comes with it.

Not Temporary "Satisfaction," but Lasting "Peace of Mind"

For an escort task force, the work of serving officers and enlisted personnel is easily treated as a "phased task." Can the real difficulties facing officers and enlisted personnel actually be resolved? More than a few had muttered about this privately when they first set out. But the Party Committee set the tone from the very beginning: the human heart is the most solid foundation of combat power; rallying the hearts of the troops has never been a temporary matter—it is foundational work, work that benefits the long term, work whose results are invisible (潜绩).

Before setting sail, the task force had already surveyed the family situations of all officers and enlisted personnel, established a "register of family hardships" (官兵家庭困难台账), and set up a coordinated support mechanism with rear-area units and local governments. During the voyage, a soldier's family member suffered a sudden serious illness. The task force Party Committee immediately contacted the rear, coordinated with the hospital to open a priority channel, and arranged for a dedicated person to handle the full process of support, resolving the soldier's concerns about his family. When that soldier learned through a satellite phone call that his family was being properly cared for, he told the ship's political commissar with deep emotion: "The organization has taken my family matters to heart—I will absolutely complete this mission well." That satellite phone call spanning the ocean was recorded in the "escort diary," silently demonstrating that organizational care is the most powerful magnetic field for cohering combat power.

Stories like this abound in the task force. To address the psychological condition of officers and enlisted personnel during the long voyage, the task force established a "Deep-Blue Heart-to-Heart Room" (深蓝谈心室), where psychological support specialists held one-on-one conversations with officers and enlisted personnel. To address the problem of personnel going long stretches without seeing their families, the task force regularly received video letters from family members transmitted via satellite and organized "family connection" sessions on weekends. To address the monotony of life at sea, officers and enlisted personnel held activities such as the "Deep-Blue Flight Deck Sports Meet," bringing color and vitality to the otherwise tedious long-voyage routine.

"I used to think that running education sessions and organizing activities only counted as achievement if you had records and photographs to show for it. Now I understand more clearly that real achievement is more officers and enlisted personnel smiling, more knots in their hearts untied, more drive at their battle stations." The political commissar of CNS Daqing told this reporter: "There is no warmer answer to the question of 'achievement' (政绩) in the 'escort diary' than this. Even after the follow-on missions end, these good systems and good work styles that warm and rally the hearts of the troops will be passed on to subsequent escort task forces. The warmth of organizational care is the cornerstone of officers' and enlisted personnel's lasting 'peace of mind,' and the fertile ground from which combat power grows."

Not Today's "Visible Achievement" (显绩), but Tomorrow's "Bedrock Confidence"

After the escort mission ends, what will we have left behind? As the study and education on cultivating and practicing a correct view of performance and achievement deepened, this examination question about the essential nature of "achievement" was once again brought out for discussion by the task force Party Committee.

By this point, the mission had been underway for more than six months. The task force had completed the "Peace Will-2026" maritime joint exercise and the China-Pakistan "Sea Guardian-4" maritime joint exercise, executed more than one hundred batches of escort missions, made technical port calls in multiple countries, and achieved solid results across all areas of work.

At this point, the task force Party Committee posed a question for all officers to reflect on: "When we complete our mission and return home, beyond the visible achievements of escort missions, exercise results, and foreign affairs activities, what can we leave behind for subsequent escort task forces? What can we leave behind for the PLA Navy's far-seas combat capability development?"

This question cuts to the essence of the performance-and-achievement view (政绩观): to pursue short-term, visible "manifest achievement" (显绩), or to focus on long-term, foundational "latent achievement" (潜绩)?

Opening the task force commander's "escort diary," the flyleaf bears a conspicuous inscription: 功成不必在我、功成必定有我—"Success need not come in my time; success will surely come through my effort." These twelve characters are the spiritual coordinates for viewing "achievement" (政绩) on the deep-blue voyage.

"Our leg of the relay must not only run a good split—it must also lay the groundwork for the next leg." The task force commander explained that the task force's three warships are themselves a vivid embodiment of "relay escort": CNS Tangshan is executing a Gulf of Aden escort mission for the first time; CNS Daqing is on its second; and CNS Taihu is on its fifth.

"This precious experience cannot remain only within this one mission, written only into our summary reports." The task force Party Committee decided to make "systematizing far-seas escort operational experience, refining emergency response procedures, and developing a cadre of far-seas mission specialists" a sustained effort running throughout the entire mission.

This work starts from the details, yet carries long-term significance. In response to new characteristics and new trends in piracy activity in the Gulf of Aden sea area, the task force organized each vessel to comprehensively revise and refine its emergency response plans based on actual situations encountered during escort operations—from the overall procedures for armed rescue and counter-terrorism/counter-piracy operations at the macro level, down to the operational norms for radar target discrimination and the tactical actions for small-boat interception at the micro level, all were refined and optimized.

"Drawing on the situations we encountered during the mission, we refined every step, every action, every precaution down to the battle station and down to the individual." The commanding officer of CNS Tangshan explained: for example, in driving off suspected pirate small boats, they developed an operational procedure of "graduated warning, tiered response, precision interception" (分级警告、梯次处置、精准拦截), with clear norms established for responses at different distances and in different tactical situations. "This set of norms was not written up sitting in a cabin," he said. "It was ground out in the swells of the Gulf of Aden, through one incident response after another."

At the same time, the task force established a routine mission summary mechanism: every escort run, every training session, every incident was reviewed and analyzed one by one, with detailed records kept of process details, response experience, and improvement measures. They compiled and produced a series of practical operational points covering escort missions, combat-realistic training, and equipment maintenance, allowing escort experience to accumulate continuously and be passed down from generation to generation—achieving the virtuous cycle of "execute one batch of missions, accumulate one batch of experience, develop one batch of specialists."

"We must not only accomplish this batch of escort missions well—we must also pave the road and build the bridge for follow-on missions." The task force commander said: "When the escort wake lines merge into the deep blue, the breadth of spirit embodied in 'success need not come in my time' (功成不必在我), and the precious experience and strong team that this spirit has allowed to accumulate, are the weightiest chapter and the most solid bedrock confidence we leave to the future."

This Edition's Editor in Dialogue with the Commander of the PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force——

Don't Be a Temporary Visitor—Be a Good Relay Runner

As the entire military deepens its study and education on cultivating and practicing a correct view of performance and achievement (政绩观), the PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force, ten thousand li away in the Gulf of Aden, has integrated the performance-and-achievement view into every watch stood, every incident handled, and every stretch of deep-blue wake—embodying the mission commitment of "escort in the far seas, train in the far seas, fight in the far seas." Recently, this edition's editor connected with the commander of the PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force to discuss how to cultivate and practice a correct view of performance and achievement.

Editor: Commander, what is the greatest difficulty for an escort task force in cultivating and practicing a correct view of performance and achievement?

Commander: For us, the greatest difficulty is breaking through the "temporary" mentality. Many officers and enlisted personnel feel that the task force is temporary, the mission is phased, and once it's done they go home—there's no need to expend effort on work that is "invisible, intangible, and of no use to yourself." If this mentality is not eliminated, it easily breeds formalism (形式主义)—producing flashy "showcase projects" (亮点工程) while neglecting the foundational, long-term latent achievement (潜绩). So from the very beginning we emphasized: the identity may be temporary, but the responsibility is not; the tour of duty has a time limit, but the commitment does not.

Editor: How does the task force balance current mission requirements with long-term development?

Commander: The two are not in opposition—they are internally unified. The current mission is the main line; long-term development is the foundation. Only by solidifying the foundation and making up the shortfalls can the current mission be accomplished better. For example, we hold an after-action review after every escort run—it looks like it takes up time, but after the corrections are made, subsequent escorts are safer and more efficient. We develop specialists and pass on experience not only for this escort mission, but also so that when they return to their original units they can play a greater role.

Editor: In your view, where is the task force's achievement (政绩) primarily reflected?

Commander: Successfully completing all escort missions with zero accidents and zero risks is of course very important, but more important is leaving behind a practical body of experience, a strong cadre of specialists, and a refined set of equipment maintenance standards. These things will continue to play a role in subsequent missions. Achievement must be written in the hearts of officers and enlisted personnel, written in the deep-blue wake lines. As long as every escort task force runs its own leg well, the wake lines of the People's Navy will reach ever farther.

There Is No "Temporary" at the Battle Station

■ Zhang Miaosen, Radar Operator, PLA Navy 48th Escort Task Force

[Photo caption: Officers and enlisted personnel of the PLA Navy's 48th Escort Task Force hold a pledge-signing ceremony themed "Advance into the Ocean, March with the Motherland." Photo by Du Jiangfan.]

This is my first time executing a Gulf of Aden escort mission. When I first joined the task force, I genuinely had the "temporary" mindset. I came from a different unit, I'd go back when the mission ended, and I always felt that as long as I didn't make mistakes at my battle station and returned safely, the mission was accomplished. As for things like accumulating experience and developing talent—those had nothing to do with me.

During one watch, a radar signal appeared that I stared at for a long time without being able to identify. It was only thanks to a timely reminder from veteran senior enlisted leader He Yongchao that no harm was done. Afterward, I felt deeply ashamed and told myself to be more careful next time and not make mistakes again.

What I didn't expect was that the after-action review that evening specifically raised my problem. Chief He didn't criticize me—instead, he pressed into my hands his well-worn duty log. In that log, written in different colors of ink, were the data signatures of different target types in different sea areas, along with his own summaries of every mistake he had made. "Our task force may be temporary, but there's nothing temporary about the battle station," Chief He said. "The skills you learn today, you can use when you go back to your original unit. The experience you summarize can also help the next batch of comrades."

The chief's words woke me up. From that point on, I no longer carried the "temporary" mentality. Every watch, I carefully recorded the data on every target; during training, I actively sought guidance from veteran specialists; during rest time, I buried myself in the chief's duty log to study. Gradually, I too became capable of independently completing target identification quickly.

Now, more than six months into the escort mission, I have compiled my own duty notebook. When the mission handover comes, I will pass this notebook on to the next batch of comrades.

(Compiled by Du Jiangfan)