In 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping donned military fatigues and boarded a People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer in the South China Sea. Spread out before him that April day was the largest flotilla Communist-ruled China had ever put to sea at one time, 48 ships, dozens of fighter jets, more than 10,000 military personnel, CNN reports.
For Xi, the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, the day was a way point to a grand ambition — a force that would show China’s greatness and power across the world’s seven oceans.
