People's Liberation Army naval officials have told their international peers they must wait for 'political approval' to mount a historic expansion of China's role in the fight against piracy off the Horn of Africa by leading co-ordination efforts.
Despite Nato, European navies and the US-led Combined Maritime Forces all agreeing months ago to an unprecedented Chinese request to chair regular sessions of the so-called Shade grouping, Chinese naval delegates have had to ask for patience.
A meeting of Shade - or Shared Awareness and Deconfliction - earlier this month opened with a statement from the chairman, a Nato official, welcoming China's growing role, but PLA delegates were unable to respond with any specifics.
'We were asked to be patient ... that the Chinese side needed a bit more time before they would be ready,' one senior official close to the meeting said.
'They said they were still waiting for political approval. They did not elaborate, and given the special nature of this kind of co-operation, we did not press them for details.'
China surprised the international military community when it formally asked to chair the Shade sessions - usually headed by the EU, Nato or the CMF - in November. It even invited key navies involved in policing vital sea lanes of the Indian Ocean to Beijing for a one-off planning meeting.