The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was making final preparations for Thursday's international fleet parade in the eastern port of Qingdao to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its founding.

The parade will feature 21 navy ships from other countries.

Multinational navies compete during a sampan race at the Qingdao port of east China's Shandong province, April 21, 2009. The sampan race is part of the four-day festivities for the 60th anniversary of Chinese PLA Navy. Some 13 navy fleets from 12 countries joined the competition on Tuesday. [Xinhua]

Zhang Xiaolin, a professor at the Strategic Research Institute under the Nanjing-based Navy Command College, said the parade was set to open an extraordinary chapter in the PLAN's foreign relations, and the PLAN was stepping up efforts to engage the international community.

Major-General Zhang Shiping, a researcher with the PLA's Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing, agreed.

He said inviting foreign navies to China is a process of communication and exchange.

"More importantly, it lays the foundations for future cooperation and exchange with foreign navies," said Zhang Shiping.

Among the important foreign military officers to participate in the parade in Qingdao is U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead, who was the highest-ranking US officer to visit China this year.

Roughead said earlier in Beijing that he believed military-to-military relation was important to the broad US-China ties.

He said during his talks with PLAN Commander Adm. Wu Shengli on Saturday that they exchanged views on enhancing navy-to-navy cooperation and both navies' operations off the coast of Somalia.

In fact, "inviting in and going out", which has been used to describe China's foreign trade, has been increasingly applied by the Chinese army, especially by the PLAN, in its relations with foreign military.

In November 1985, a Chinese flotilla consisting of destroyer Hefei and supply ship Fengcang visited Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It was the PLAN's first foreign visit.