16 July 2005: The Burmese navy is conducting a survey near the Andamans to set up a patrol base and a small port, but officials and diplomats suspect an intelligence operation is underway both to map the Andaman Sea at the behest of China and to study deep water movement of big ships. Western intelligence experts said that China trained nearly three hundred Burmese naval personnel in the Jinan military region in 2003 for sea patrolling and intelligence-gathering, on the basis of a framework agreement for joint intelligence sharing and operations signed between the two countries in 1995.