Chinese Navy's hospital ship Daishan Dao in sails for Indonesia for first time since COVID-19.

According to information published by Global Times on November 3, 2022, the hospital ship Daishan Dao of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy will set out for a friendly visit to Indonesia to provide medical services to the locals there, marking the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that the PLA Navy has sent a vessel for such a foreign visit.
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Chinese hospital ship Daishan Dao or Peace Ark. (Picture source: freewechat)

After an invitation from the Indonesian military, the PLA Navy's hospital ship the Daishan Dao will set out from Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang Province toward Indonesia for a friendly visit, Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, a spokesperson at China's Ministry of National Defense, announced.

During the visit, the Chinese hospital ship will make diagnoses and give treatment for common diseases to local residents and overseas Chinese. It will provide medical services including surgical operations and hospitalization when needed, Tan said.

China and Indonesia have a friendship with a long history, the two countries have close economic cooperation, and the two countries' militaries have had frequent interactions in recent years, observers said. The 2022 G20 Bali summit is also scheduled from November 15 to 16 in Indonesia.

Since Daishan Dao's commissioning into the PLA Navy in December 2008, it has actively practiced the concepts of building a community with a shared future for mankind as well as a maritime community with a shared future, Liu said.

In the vessel's previous nine overseas visits, it sailed for more than 240,000 nautical miles and provided services to more than 230,000 people in 43 countries and regions.

The ship is a large and comprehensive maritime mobile hospital that can host a large professional medical staff capable of carrying out surgical operations, and once it reaches Indonesia, it can provide treatment for diseases the locals are facing, Wei said.

About the hospital ship

Daishan Dao is the sole ship of its class, and is assigned pennant number 866. She is assigned to the South Sea Fleet and based out of Zhoushan in Zhejiang province.

She has a capacity of 300 beds, 20 ICU beds, 8 operating theatres, and can perform 40 major surgeries a day, in addition to X-ray, ultrasound, CT, hypothermia, hemodialysis, traditional Chinese medicine, and dental facilities. She is also equipped with a remote networking and communications system to allow teleconferencing with doctors and specialists on land.