Adusty, fly-strewn fishing port on the east coast of Somalia may seem a strange place from which to glimpse the future. But it is here that Beijing faces the kind of military and diplomatic test that a rapidly growing navy will have to confront in its efforts to better protect the nation's broadening global interests.
The Chinese-flagged coal carrier De Xin Hai and its 25 mainland crew have been held under armed guard by pirates off the port of Hobyo since Thursday. They were captured far out in the Indian Ocean beyond the Seychelles four days earlier, despite the presence of a People's Liberation Army naval task force nearby that is part of an international anti-piracy armada.
If it was some kind of domestic trouble in a restive province or a less visible act of high seas criminality, perhaps the response from Beijing would be swift and brutal. The solution to this trouble, however, is far more complex and must play out before a considerable domestic and international audience.
For the world, it is a chance to see how China's new navy can operate far from home and the extent to which Beijing may be prepared to use force to defend its economic rights and interests.
Domestically, of course, the fires of nationalism have already been lit and stoked with constant references to growing military might and the skills of crack units, including the special forces teams aboard the three mainland warships off the Horn of Africa. The bloggers want blood.
But, for the time being at least, they are unlikely to get it. State media already appears to be determined to limit expectations, with the hijacking largely conspicuous by its absence in news bulletins from day one.