"During the past two decades China has made substantial progress in modernizing the People's Liberation Army Navy PLAN. Such progress is reflected in the improvements of PLAN's submarines and surface combatants, mainly in terms of their sensors, stealth integrated air and missile defense, and operational and strike-range effectiveness. Since late 2008, the PLAN also has been conducting its first sustained naval operations in seas far away from China's shores, as demonstrated in deployment of its counter-piracy task groups to the Gulf of Aden. Moreover China has considered construction of aircraft carriers, and openly debated the establishment of overseas bases for maintaining a naval presence in the "far oceans."