Communist China seeks to project naval power on a global scale and will likely soon invest in new overseas bases to better sustain a worldwide military presence, experts say.
Constructing new bases either further afield in the Pacific or on the Atlantic coast of Africa would give China a greatly enhanced operational capability, according to Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.
“Their model is different but, in many ways, at the end of the day, they’re going to have bases that look like the United States,” Mr. Sadler said during an Aug. 15 talk at The Heritage Foundation.
He added that the Chinese regime is building carrier strike groups that will largely operate in a capacity similar to U.S. groups. Sustaining the warships abroad, he said, will require adding other overseas naval bases to the regime’s first, which was built in the East African country of Djibouti in 2017.
By building a new base on the western coast of Africa, in Equatorial Guinea perhaps, Mr. Sadler said the regime could further extend its ability to supply strike groups with munitions and fuel, as well as operate in the Atlantic indefinitely.
“It would be the new entry for China,” Mr. Sadler said. “To be that far away, it would allow them to sustain naval operations—military operations—in the Atlantic.”
To that end, Mr. Sadler said that the regime’s history of secrecy regarding military projects could mean that such a base, or at least the negotiations for one’s placement, is well underway.
“The Chinese denied any intention of ever developing aircraft carriers until they had one,” Mr. Sadler said. “That’s a decade-plus of saying that until it became almost impossible to ignore.
China Requires New Bases to Sustain Global Presence
Flows of cash and other resources from China to West African nations could further indicate that such an expansion is well in the works, according to Alexander Wooley, director of partnerships and communications at AidData, a think tank that analyzes government aid to development projects.“They’re going to have a base somewhere in that region,” Mr. Wooley said. “Which [country] it might be, they’re not telling anyone.”
Chinese Naval Development Outstrips US
Still, the regime faces difficulties. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, lacks the myriad formal allies of the United States. That means it can’t simply count on its military presence being welcomed anywhere in the world until it can actually construct its own bases.“They do not belong to a typical defense alliance like NATO or the relatively new AUKUS, so they don’t have relationships with countries where there’s some level playing field in terms of the relationship where they could base their ship, like the U.S. fleet in Naples for example,” Mr. Wooley said.
“If they want to deploy ships further afield, they don’t have those relationships with an ally with a host naval base. They don’t have as many replenishment ships as other modern navies might have, so it makes sense to be looking for a place to have a naval base.”
To that end, Mr. Wooley said that the regime will likely continue to expand its naval fleet over the coming decade. That numerical superiority, meanwhile, will further generate the demand for new overseas basing opportunities.
“I think it’s inevitable the growth of the Chinese navy is going to continue in the next decade,” Mr. Wooley said.
China’s naval forces are expected to grow to more than 400 vessels within the next two years, expanding the regime’s maritime forces significantly past that of the U.S. Navy’s less than 290 vessels. That number rises to more than 600 if the Chinese coast guard and maritime militia forces are counted.
The majority of the Chinese fleet, meanwhile, is currently stationed within 300 miles of the country. That means in the event of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific, the United States would be starting at a sizable disadvantage.
