Egyptian Environment Minister Mamdouh Riad and foreign diplomats from more than 20 other countries visited China's missile guided destroyer, the Qingdao, Sunday in Alexandria.
They were attracted by the first appearance of a Chinese worship calling at a Mediterranean port city.
The Qingdao and a supply ship, the Taicang, took up a berth in Alexandria on Friday at the start of a five-day visit to Egypt, the second stop of their maiden voyage around the world.
The two vessels with more than 500 crew members on board weighed anchor at a naval port in China's eastern port city of Qingdao on May 15.
Yoon-Kyung Oh, ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Egypt, told Xinhua aboard the Qingdao that China's navy is showing its strength to the outside world not in a hostile way, but on a friendly mission.
The ambassador believes that China is a peace-loving country, and that the Chinese fleet is making its round-the-world trip for peace and friendship.
Xavier de Fontenay, naval attaché of the French Embassy in Egypt, said that the current global visit provides an opportunity for the Chinese navy to present itself to the rest of the world, and shows that the Chinese naval forces have started contacting their foreign counterparts.
Ding Yiping, commander of the North China Sea Fleet, accompanied the foreign diplomats to look around the Chinese destroyer, which is equipped with an anti-submarine helicopter and sophisticated rocket launchers
The Chinese fleet is expected to leave Alexandria on Tuesday.
(People's Daily June 17, 2002)
