YUAN WANG 5

About:

• The vessel’s visit to the Lankan port comes at a time when the country is battling a severe economic crisis, and India is learnt to have already lodged a verbal protest against the ship’s visit.
• The ‘Yuan Wang 5’, a Chinese research and survey vessel, is en route to Hambantota, a strategically important deep-sea port developed mostly using loans from Beijing.
• ‘Yuan Wang’-class ships are used to track satellite, rocket and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches.
• China has around seven of these tracking ships that are capable of operating throughout the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. The ships supplement Beijing’s land-based tracking stations.