The incident occurred on Tuesday when a helicopter from the Chinese destroyer Haikou saw a pair of small pirate vessels closing on the ship and fired a pair of signal flares to drive them off, Xinhua news agency said.

It was the second time that a Chinese naval convoy, sent to the Gulf of Aden in January on a landmark mission to protect the country's shipping from pirates, has come to the aid of foreign ships, according to Xinhua.

On January 29, the destroyer Wuhan thwarted an attack on a Greek vessel, the agency said.

The Chinese naval task force, comprising two destroyers and a supply ship, was deployed in response to an escalation of pirate attacks on merchant ships plying the crucial shipping route linking Asia and Europe.

The force's mission marked China's first potential combat mission beyond its territorial waters in centuries.

US and European ships have also been sent to the waters off Somalia, where pirates attacked more than 100 vessels last year.

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