Chinese evacuations and power projection (part 1): overseas citizen protection

Abstract

As China’s national and international economic interests have steadily grown, so has the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to protect them. China’s expanding, social-media-savvy middle class now expects the military to protect the country’s citizens overseas. That expectation has been reinforced formally by the strategic direction for the PLA to ‘protect the security of strategic SLOCs [sea lines of communication] and overseas interests’.