China is secretly constructing a naval facility at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand for exclusive use by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a report published yesterday in the Washington Post said, citing Western intelligence officials.
The report said that China and Cambodia went to extraordinary lengths to conceal the operation. Ream Naval Base would be China’s second confirmed overseas military base after Djibouti in East Africa, and assuming that the intelligence is correct, indicates that despite Washington’s efforts to contain Chinese expansionism, Beijing is forging ahead with its plan to build a network of military facilities across the globe to challenge the US’ post-World War II military dominance.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Indonesia yesterday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the report “concerning” and hinted that the unnamed Western intelligence officials may have been Australian.
“We’ve been aware of Beijing’s activity at Ream for some time. We encourage Beijing to be transparent about its intent and to ensure that its activities support regional security and stability,” Albanese said.
In addition to Djibouti and Cambodia, Beijing appears to have earmarked a number of other locations across the globe for military bases or logistics facilities as part of its “string of pearls” grand strategy for the Indo-Pacific region.
At the end of April, China revealed that it had inked a secret security deal with the Solomon Islands, Taiwan’s former diplomatic ally which was poached by Beijing in September 2019. Although the text of the finalized deal is not in the public domain, a leaked draft shows that it would allow the deployment of Chinese security forces in the event of domestic unrest to “protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects” on the islands, as well as grant Chinese naval vessels safe harbor at the strategically important deep-water port on the island of Tulagi, 2,000km from the Australian coastline.
Were China to develop Tulagi into a permanent naval base, military analysts believe it would allow the PLA to project power deep into the South Pacific, threaten supply lines to Australia, and facilitate Beijing’s key strategic priority to deny the US and its allies access to the region. There was shock in Washington and Canberra following the announcement of the deal, and a sense that both nations had been thoroughly wrong-footed by Beijing.
Taipei expressed concern over the regional security implications of the deal, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) saying the deal could threaten US supply lines in the event of a war between Taiwan and China.
The US Department of Defense’s Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021 said that aside from Djibouti, China was “very likely already considering and planning for additional military bases and logistics facilities to support naval, air, and ground forces projection.” The report listed Angola, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Seychelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates as potential locations.
Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port was effectively handed over to China in 2017 after Colombo became ensnared by Beijing’s debt-trap diplomacy. The debt restructuring deal gave China a controlling equity stake and a 99-year lease for the port.
The development of Pakistan’s Gwadar Port forms a key element of the greater China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, which is a key spoke within Beijing’s wider Belt and Road Initiative to secure key strategic supply lines throughout the globe. Beijing has also pursued closer military and economic ties with Thailand in recent years, which could pave the way for a Chinese military base in the country.
China’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea and its “string of pearls” strategy to acquire military bases such as Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base in the Indo-Pacific region present a formidable challenge to the US and the defense of Taiwan in the years ahead.
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