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China has dispatched a naval ship, codenamed Harmony 2025, to the South Pacific and Latin America—a region often considered the backyard of the United States—for medical and cultural missions. This deployment comes amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela.
The Pentagon has sent warships and fighter aircraft to the southern Caribbean as part of its efforts against narco-terrorists. Newsweek contacted both the Pentagon and Chinese Foreign Ministry for comments, but no responses were received.
As China builds its military capabilities, it operates what is now the world’s largest navy by hull count—over 370 ships and submarines, including three oceangoing hospital ships assigned to various theater commands. These ships help Beijing expand its global military presence and influence.
In recent years, Latin America and the Caribbean, once seen as part of U.S.’s sphere of influence, have witnessed China’s increased political, economic, and military ties. This year, tensions between Beijing and Washington escalated over the sovereignty of the Panama Canal.
According to the Chinese Defense Ministry, the hospital ship CNS Silk Road Ark will embark on its Harmony 2025 mission in early September from Quanzhou, Fujian province. The ship is scheduled to visit Nauru, Fiji, Tonga, Mexico, Jamaica, Barbados, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Papua New Guinea during a 220-day deployment. It’s unclear whether the ship will transit the Panama Canal.
The mission aims to strengthen friendly cooperation between China and relevant countries, provide public safety resources to the international community, and advance concepts of a global community with shared future.
In its first overseas deployment since commissioning in April 2024, the Silk Road Ark will treat patients and perform surgeries. A similar mission by the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort treated over 12,600 people in six countries during Continuing Promise 2025.
It remains to be seen how the U.S. military will respond to China’s naval deployment in Latin America and the Caribbean.
