Christopher Bodeen of the Associated Press reports that Chinese officers are being trained in public relations as the military has more global engagements:
An initial class of 51 officers graduated this week in an effort to “raise the opinion-forming ability of the force’s foreign propaganda team and advance the innovation and development of the military propaganda work,” the official People’s Liberation Army Daily reported Friday.
The two-week training course included classes dealing with China’s recent dispatch of ships to carry out anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, as well as joint China-India anti-terror drills and other international missions, it said.
Course work included mock news conferences with reporters from the PLA Daily and the official Xinhua News Agency, the PLA Daily said.
See here for more information on the U.S. Impeccable incident, see here for more information on the Somalia anti-piracy expedition.