Powerful nations throughout history have either been thalassocratic or tellurocratic: either sea-based or land-based powers. It seems China wants to be both.
China has proposed establishing a permanent military base in Vanuatu, something the Pacific island nation vehemently denies, saying it is undergoing preliminary discussions and that no formal proposals have been made.
What Vanuatu failed to mention was that those preliminary discussions included allowing navy vessels from China’s People’s Liberation Army to make regular port calls for repairs and maintenance.
For Australia, China’s usage of Vanuatu would be the second time the nation has faced a national security threat in its own backyard — the first was when Japan captured Rabaul in Papua New Guinea during World War II — and using it as its major military and naval base in the South Pacific.
For the US, this would be its first substantial military strategic threat in the region since it expelled Japan from the Pacific arena after the war.
Experts believe that Tonga will be next. China’s taking of Vanuatu not only affects New Zealand and Australia, but also allows China to extend its control over the Pacific and gives it a clear stretch to South America. This is quite a momentous move.
In 2011, US consultants devised the “string of pearls” hypothesis to describe how China is, through investments and loans, developing a maritime infrastructure connecting ports in the Indian Ocean to ensure oil supply to the Middle East. At the time, it was regarded as a way for China to address its “Malacca dilemma.”
In 2013, China began transforming coral reefs in the South China Sea into military bases, and in 2014, the same year in which Chinese investors won the contract to build the Nicaragua Canal, it announced its Belt and Road Initiative.
The northern “silk road” and southern “string of pearls” extends China’s focus from Middle Eastern oil to African resources and further afield to European technology and markets.
In 2015, Thailand and China signed a memorandum of understanding to construct a shipping passage across southern Thailand’s Kra Isthmus. The proposal was immediately denied, as Thailand had agreed — in the Secret Anglo-Siamese Convention of 1897 and the Anglo-Thai Peace Treaty of 1946 — to not construct a canal in that location without the UK’s approval, but it has been reported that planning is nearly finished.
Last year, China’s military base in Djibouti became operational; this year, China published its “Arctic policy” white paper; now there have been reports of China using Vanuatu as a military base.
In a few short years, China has rapidly extended its reach to the point that it will be difficult to keep under control.
With all of these initiatives, China has clearly set its eyes on the entire world — all that remains is the Atlantic Ocean.
China’s provision of loans is aimed at ensuring that debtor nations have no way of repaying the money, allowing China 99-year leases on strategic bases in their territories. In Vanuatu, 47 percent of foreign investment is Chinese. There are also controversies over the Hambantota Port and in the Maldives, and anger within certain African nations.
Even the US needs to rely on its global allies to extend its reach. Within a decade, China has extended its reach at an alarming rate, posing the question of how it is to be funded. China has not yet completed the transformation from a tellurocracy to a thalassocracy — could it have overextended and lost sight of its basic strategy?
HoonTing is a political commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to bully Taiwan by conducting military drills extremely close to Taiwan in late May 2024 and announcing a legal opinion in June on how they would treat “Taiwan Independence diehards” according to the PRC’s Criminal Code. This article will describe how China’s Anaconda Strategy of psychological and legal asphyxiation is employed. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) conducted a “punishment military exercise” against Taiwan called “Joint Sword 2024A” from 23-24 May 2024, just three days after President William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in and
Former US president Donald Trump’s comments that Taiwan hollowed out the US semiconductor industry are incorrect. That misunderstanding could impact the future of one of the world’s most important relationships and end up aiding China at a time it is working hard to push its own tech sector to catch up. “Taiwan took our chip business from us,” the returnee US presidential contender told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview published this week. The remarks came after the Republican nominee was asked whether he would defend Taiwan against China. It is not the first time he has said this about the nation’s
The Yomiuri Shimbun, the newspaper with the largest daily circulation in Japan, on Thursday last week published an article saying that an unidentified high-ranking Japanese official openly spoke of an analysis that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) needs less than a week, not a month, to invade Taiwan with its amphibious forces. Reportedly, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has already been advised of the analysis, which was based on the PLA’s military exercises last summer. A Yomiuri analysis of unclassified satellite photographs confirmed that the PLA has already begun necessary base repairs and maintenance, and is conducting amphibious operation exercises
The first session of the 11th Legislative Yuan’s four-year term ended on Tuesday, and 55 bills were passed in the session, which is the fewest bills passed in one session in 12 years. However, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) said the session delivered a “very good result,” despite there being fights and arguments in this break-in session for many newly elected legislators. In the last two days of the session, lawmakers rushed to pass a slew of resolutions and bills, mainly proposed by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators, who have a combined majority in the