Naval facility under construction in Djibouti shows Beijing’s ambitions to be a global maritime power and protect its expanding interests abroad
By JEREMY PAGE
Aug. 19, 2016 12:04 p.m. ET
DORALEH, Djibouti—It was February this year when camel drivers first spotted the Chinese troops staking out a patch of coastal scrubland about 8 miles from the largest U.S. military base in Africa.
Chinese navy ships had visited this tiny East African nation before. They sometimes picked up supplies in the old French port, farther down the arid coast, during antipiracy patrols off Somalia.
This time, the Chinese military was here to stay. The camel herders watched as the troops secured a plot next to a construction site where a vast new bulk and container port is taking shape.
The 90-acre plot is where Beijing is building its first overseas military outpost—a historic step that marks a bold new phase in its evolution as a world power.
Due for completion next year, the naval outpost is expected to feature weapons stores, ship and helicopter maintenance facilities and possibly a small contingent of Chinese marines or special forces, according to foreign officers and experts monitoring its development. Its cluster of low-rise concrete buildings and shipping containers, some with Chinese flags, offers the most tangible sign yet of China’s strategy to extend its military reach across the Indian Ocean and beyond.
In doing so, China is accelerating its transformation from an isolationist, continental nation to a global maritime power, a move that could challenge Western security partnerships that have underpinned the world order since 1945.
Right now, only a handful of nations have bases beyond their borders. The U.S. has the most, in 42 foreign countries. Britain, France and Russia each have them in about a dozen countries and overseas territories.
While Chinese officials deny plans to build large U.S.-style bases and call the Djibouti outpost a “support facility,” they also talk openly about negotiating more overseas outposts where Chinese interests coalesce.
“Steadily advancing overseas base construction” is one of President
’s foreign-policy priorities, wrote Adm.Sun Jianguo,the deputy chief of the joint staff department and likely future naval chief, in a Communist Party magazine in April.
China’s missile destroyer Jinan entered the port of Salalah, Oman, last year.PHOTO:ZENG TAO/XINHUA/ZUMA WIRE
The Pentagon has predicted China will establish several more outposts in the next decade. One likely spot is Oman’s port of Salalah, where Chinese navy ships often stop for rest and resupply, defense experts say. Other possibilities include the Seychelles and Pakistan’s port of Karachi.
Officials from those countries didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether bases might be built there, nor did China.
Mr. Xi’s rationale is that China needs to protect its expanding interests overseas, including stakes in Middle Eastern oil fields and a growing corps of Chinese expatriates. That also could embellish his
, even as China’s economy slows.
On the other hand, Beijing risks getting sucked into violent entanglements, much as the U.S. and other powers have. Three Chinese peacekeepers have died in action in Africa since June, including
, where China has oil investments.
While Western nations have encouraged Chinese involvement in peacekeeping and other multilateral missions, a long-term military presence in Djibouti, butting up against U.S. operations, opens a fresh arena of
.
The U.S. in particular worries that sensitive U.S. defense technology would have to be removed if compromised by the kind of Chinese surveillance, including hacking, that has troubled U.S. officials elsewhere.
“China is coming very aggressively into the region,” said one senior Western officer tracking the Chinese activities. “What will be the results? I don’t know. We’re talking about China’s future as a world power.”
The U.S. base in Djibouti, Camp Lemonnier, has about 4,000 troops and is used for Special Forces and drone operations against jihadist groups in the region. It abuts Djibouti’s main airport, and attack helicopters and other U.S. military aircraft are often seen by the runway.
U.S. and French military training taking place near Camp Lemonnier in 2013.PHOTO:SGT CHAD THOMPSON/PLANET PIX/ZUMA WIRE
The U.S. doesn’t want Chinese military aircraft, including drones, flying near its facilities. There is already discomfort that China has provided Djibouti’s air force with a turboprop plane, serviced by Chinese personnel, which U.S. officers say has been seen landing at an airstrip used by U.S. drones. In July, Djibouti’s air force received another two light transport aircraft from China.
“We’re strictly reliant upon the Djiboutian government to make sure that anybody who might be adversarial are separated appropriately,” said Maj. Gen.Kurt Sonntag,commander of U.S. forces in Djibouti.
A Pentagon official wouldn’t comment on Chinese surveillance but said that Washington and Beijing have regular talks about Africa, and that the U.S. partnership with Djibouti remains strong. Washington extended its Camp Lemonnier lease for 20 years in 2014, paying $70 million annually.
Djibouti’s foreign minister,Mahmoud Ali Youssouf,said in an interview that while it isn’t in Djibouti’s interests to alienate Washington, his country is “positioning itself in this big design China is putting in place.” He pledged “to keep balance between those partners present here.”
China is also playing down tensions. The outpost “is in order to better uphold international responsibilities and duties, and to protect China’s legal interests,” the Defense Ministry said in a faxed statement. It pledged not to engage in military expansion.
Djibouti, a former French colony slightly smaller than Vermont, overlooks the Bab-el-Mandeb, a 20-mile-wide strait between Africa and the Arabian peninsula at the entrance to the Red Sea. Roughly 20% of the world’s trade and half of China’s oil imports pass through the nearby Gulf of Aden. Djibouti also provides an outlet for trade with landlocked Ethiopia and other parts of Africa’s interior.
The French kept a base after Djibouti’s independence in 1977. Djibouti also hosts German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese forces, mostly for antipiracy patrols. The U.S. military came in 2003 to support the war on terror and has since expanded its base to about 570 acres, with a $1.4 billion upgrade under way.
The multinational presence lends the torpid capital, Djibouti City, an air of cosmopolitan intrigue akin to Casablanca in the 1940s. A French-speaking local elite rubs shoulders with buzz-cut U.S. security contractors, white-uniformed European naval officers, traders, diplomats and spies.
They congregate in Western bars and cafes among crumbling Moorish-style mansions or in two luxury hotels, a Sheraton and a Kempinski, while locals seek refuge from searing heat at the Siesta Beach.
Despite a mostly Muslim population, alcohol is allowed and women enjoy relative freedom. PresidentIsmail Omar Guellehwon a fourth term in April amid opposition allegations he has stifled many political freedoms. Outside the capital, Djibouti is mostly desert and poor.
China’s navy conducted its first joint maritime exercises with Djibouti last year and has said its new outpost will be largely to support Chinese forces on missions such as antipiracy patrols off Somalia.PHOTO:CHINESE NAVY
To be continued...
a thread unfortunately quite unfrequented... but mines which seem quite rustic get one big advantage are cheaper and i am sure can be usefull, don' t need only super sophisticated and expensives weapons... !
