China has recently hinted that it was planning more global bases following the setting up of its logistics center in Djibouti, what the Horn of African country’s government calls a military facility that will be China’s first overseas.
China plans to use it to support is anti-piracy operations in the waters off the strife-torn nations of Somalia and Yemen. Beijing has been keen not to call it a military base, but state media increasingly uses this language to refer to it.
China’s Defence Ministry said last month building had begun on the base, something China describes as naval “support facilities” in Djibouti, which has fewer than a million people but is striving to become an international shipping hub.
Djibouti, strategically located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea on the route to the Suez Canal, is already home to U.S. and French bases, while other navies often use its port.
Asked about Djibouti at his yearly news conference on the sidelines of China’s annual meeting of parliament, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China was fulfilling its international obligations to protect shipping.
“We are willing to, in accordance with objective needs, responding to the wishes of host nations and in regions where China’s interests are concentrated, try out the construction of some infrastructure facilities and support abilities,” he said.
“I believe that this is not only fair and reasonable but also accords with international practice,” Wang said, without elaborating.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, is seeking to expand its capacity to respond to growing threats to its interests abroad.
President Xi Jinping is reforming the military and investing in submarines and aircraft carriers, as China’s navy becomes more assertive in its territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas.
China is also expanding its peacekeeping role, with Xi pledging in September to contribute 8,000 troops for a United Nations stand-by force that could provide logistical and operational experience the military would need to operate further abroad.
While China has been getting more involved diplomatically in trouble spots such as the Middle East, it is adamant that it does not interfere in the affairs of other countries, and is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council which has not taken military action in Syria.
Michael Shokunbi
The real intention of the Chinese just came to fore, the world was misled and misinformed over period of time, for as long as the artificial island was under construction, was told it was for economic purposes, now just sang another tune, which was the defense tendency, as justification of the project in the south China sea
Therefore, the Philippines also became justified, with their initial suspicion of the Chinese primary intention thereby the step taken for judicial arbitration, insincere still in their quest for an absurd adventure, when the Chinese refuse to accept or recognize, the intervention of a court of international jurisprudence, if your intentions are clean, you will not disregard independent arbitration to a dispute
Good enough, the Chinese came out to recognize superiority of the US as leading world power, ahead of all agitators for such claim, beginning of their wisdom, which should have applied to the dispute on ground
The immorality of the Chinese stinks to high heavens here, you unilaterally commenced a misadventure, illegally, yet expect any aggrieved party to come to table of bilateral discussion, after insulting their intelligence, to come around, rubber stamp the illegality that could tie their hands, for complicity and further compound their problems
The Philippines have acted smarter and wiser, the Chinese probably thought this would go unchallenged, well they got this one very very wrong, you cannot build any structure in international waterways, at least not unilaterally