Not really puzzling, since that is china's long held position to not make overseas military bases. They are even reluctant to call the base in Djibouti and elsewhere a "military" base. They call it some logistics supply base or something lol.
Why they don't do it in Pakistan? Because of India. China wants to obviously have good relations with India in the long run, and not go completely on side with Pakistan, and also doesn't want to make Pakistan too strong and able to actually start a war by itself. They want Pakistan to be able to deter India, but not actually start a war by itself without china's permission. I think it's similar to Taiwan situation with usa in terms of keeping status quo, while usa also doesn't want to make china it's enemy, like real enemy that cannot be reconciled.
As for why china doesn't want to have more military bases and pursue a strategy like usa, its because china is still too weak. Usa has all the developed countries and nato and eu etc on its side. Based on history, china knows usa and and eu and even India now(and Russia also) are all scared of china purely because of china's size and unity. So due to game theory, they all want to gang up vs china because china's the strongest. Usa is far away and they are not as scared of usa, which is why they allow bases, because usa needs them because they are too far away otherwise.
If china starts building bases and expanding it's military footprint, it will only give an excuse for usa and it's "allies" to militarize and gang up against china. I don't know why tphuang doesn't understand this. It's quite obvious. If china could get away with it, obviously it would. But it can't, so the status quo with bide the time and power up without making enemies and setting off alarm bells is the best way to go. Right now usa is like a headless chicken without an enemy to focus on. China should NOT take the bait and give them any reason or excuse to turn china into a full on enemy, which is the whole point of the game and why usa keeps provoking china. Is that so hard to understand tphuang? China is not ready yet to take usa on in frontal direct fight, so thats why china should bide it's time still and keep rising. It's a great strategy and also allows for great flexibility. If china doesn't want to be world hegemon or it can't, then it doesn't even need to do anything later and can just keep being neutral. China doesn't HAVE TO be undisputed world or even regional undisputed hegemon. As long as china's national security and sovereign is secured, which IT ALREADY IS(for the most part), there's no need to be greedy and risk ww3 or nuclear exchange. Unless of course you're some hardcore nationalist/imperialist hell bent on china being global Military/cultural/economic hegemon. Which I don't think is smart or even feasible in this multi polar world and just a waste of time, money, lives, etc.
After china is completely self sufficient in tech and energy, and has matched or has bigger economy and Military than usa and eu and Japan/sk combined, then china should start thinking about expanding military bases and playing world police, if that's what's in china's best interest at the time. Which I don't agree with since I prefer multipolar world and world peace.
Until then china should keep doing BRI and helping global south(ie china's real future allies) to rise to counter usas own allies. Countries like Vietnam and phillipines are too close to china and will always be playing both sides and hedging against chinas rise/power. And based on history you can't blame Vietnam either. Same as SK etc.
However with global south, like Africa, south America, middle east, and even EU, history is on chinas side. And geography also, since china is far away, and military bases and alliances would be more natural and logical. That's why usa has military bases there. I can see china can be guarantor of eu security because it's impartial and far away. In fact Ukraine has already called for it.. see below.
Very very interesting comments. New global security system with china in one of the key positions, if not the key position. And also seems like Ukraine is feeling betrayed by nato and EU, regardless if they are sending some manpads or not. In the end their country is still destroyed, and they aren't getting any nato membership or even eu anytime soon.
I don't see ASEAN going into alliance or allowing Chinese Military bases for the above reasons. If anything they would rather hedge against Chinese power and allow us bases. ASEAN itself is meant to be a counterweight to china(and usa to lesser extent), no?
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