It is officially the largest overseas evacuation since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. A total of 35,860 Chinese nationals stranded in riot-torn Libya were rescued in a huge air, sea and land operation in about 10 days. And for the first time, four military transport aircraft and a Chinese frigate were dispatched in a long-range overseas rescue mission. For many, it is more than just a tale of a rising and increasingly confident power eager to project influence beyond its borders and defend its fast-expanding overseas interests. 'To put it short, the operation is a vivid display of China's national strength and its success has made many Chinese proud,' said Professor Zhuang Jianzhong , an international security expert from Shanghai Jiaotong University. 'And as a result, we've seen many firsts that occurred during the nation's largest government-led evacuation effort in the past six decades.' China's deputy representative to the UN in Geneva, Wang Qun, hailed it as a vivid testament to Beijing's commitment to human rights. His remarks were made after China endorsed a UN resolution to suspend Libya's membership from its human rights council, a step that took many by surprise as China itself has often been singled out for its poor human rights record. While China has impressed the world with a massive multi-service evacuation operation, many Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Thailand and the Philippines, have called for international help to evacuate tens of thousands of their citizens trapped in the deadly Libyan unrest. The rescue operation started last week when an increasing number of Chinese citizens reported attacks by gun-wielding looters as the popular revolt grew more violent. Many experts said the rapid deterioration of the situation in Libya, and especially the besieged Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's inability to cope with what appeared, at the outset, to be small uprisings, had surprised Beijing. 'With so many lives of Chinese nationals at risk amid political turmoil, the government simply has no choice but to attach the highest attention to the evacuation,' said Professor Zhang Xiaodong, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Beijing set up an evacuation taskforce on Tuesday last week, under Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang . Civilian aircraft and overseas passenger ferries were chartered by the government immediately in the rescue effort, which focused on evacuating Chinese citizens from Libya to a third country, including Greece, Malta, Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan. Embassies in Tunisia and Egypt, which have recovered from unrest in previous weeks, were also actively engaged in a race against time to pick up thousands of people who fled Tripoli, Benghazi and other riot-hit cities and scrambled to reach road borders with two African neighbours. At the height of the evacuation mission, about 20 civilian aircrafts were recruited every day, bringing Chinese home from the Mediterranean countries. Deputy foreign minister Song Tao declared the mission a victory on Thursday, saying all Chinese who wanted to leave had been evacuated. But he did not give further details about how many Chinese remained in Libya, including embassy staff and those who could not be reached by the rescue effort. However, many experts have warned that the Libyan crisis should serve as a wake-up call for Beijing. 'The government and all the Chinese companies operating in Libya should learn a bitter lesson in how to manage risks in politically volatile regions in overseas investment,' said Zhuang. Libya, Africa's third largest oil producer and fourth largest natural gas producer, had around 36,000 Chinese working on 50 multimillion-dollar projects, mostly in oil, railways and telecommunications. 'China does not have many real experts on Mid-East and Arab affairs and that's why we were so shocked and unprepared by the uprisings,' Zhuang added. Zhuang and Zhang Xiaodong also noted that, although mainland media extensively covered the evacuation effort, they had kept an embarrassing silence over the extent of the political turmoil and the rising anti-government forces in North Africa. 'The government is apparently under immense domestic pressure as there have been calls for rallies in Wangfujing [in an emulation of the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia],' Zhang said. 'The government had to take the opportunity of evacuating Chinese nationals to ease pressure and curb rising dissatisfaction.' Professor Sun Zhe, director of the Sino-US Relations Institute at Tsinghua University, also said Beijing must begin to map out plans for the next stage as its ties with Libya and many lucrative projects were at risk. The guided-missile frigate Xuzhou was diverted from anti-piracy patrols in the Indian Ocean to 'support and protect' Chinese nationals a week ago. Four Russian-built Ilyushin Il-76 jets later made the 9,500 kilometre journey from Urumqi , Xinjiang . According to the China News Service yesterday, the military jets managed to fly 1,655 people from the southern Libyan city of Sabha to the Sudanese capital Khartoum. Speaking on the sidelines of the annual gathering of the National People's Congress, retired Major General Luo Yuan said: 'It is a good start. The rare overseas mission will help our military get more experience and specifically, the use of navy ships and aircraft means our long-range deployment capability has seen a remarkable improvement.' But many military experts were not so upbeat. Beijing-based defence expert Song Xiaojun said the evacuation had exposed many flaws, especially an inability to project military power. 'Our missile frigate is not big enough to carry many people and the aircraft are largely old Russian-made transport jets,' he said. Additional reporting by Minnie Chan To the rescue By air 92 civilian aircraft chartered to evacuate Chinese nationals Planes provided by main carriers Air China: 27 China Southern: 22 China Eastern: 25 PLA Air Forces transport planes used: 4 By sea China Ocean Shipping Group: 4 passenger liners China Shipping Group: 3 passenger liners China embassies chartered: 3 Greek merchant vessels Evacuation of 35,860 Chinese citizens. Some left on buses to Tunisia and Egypt
