‘China likely to build more overseas bases’

WASHINGTON: A Pentagon report released on Tuesday singled out Pakistan as a possible location for a future Chinese military base, as it forecast that Beijing would likely build more bases overseas after establishing a facility in the African nation of Djibouti.

The prediction came in a 97page annual report to Congress that saw advances throughout the Chinese military last year, funded by robust defence spending that the Pentagon estimated exceeded US$180 billion (RM767 billion).

That is higher than China’s official defence budget figure of 954.35 billion yuan (RM444.8 billion).

Chinese leaders, the report said, appeared committed to defence spending hikes for the “foreseeable future”, even as economic growth slowed.

The report repeatedly cited China’s construction of its first overseas naval base in Djibouti, which is already home to a key US military base and is strategically located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea on the route to the Suez Canal.

“China most likely will seek to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan,” the report said.

Djibouti’s position on the northwestern edge of the Indian Ocean has fuelled worries in India that it would become another of China’s “string of pearls” of military alliances and assets ringing India, including Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

The report did not address India’s potential reaction to a Chinese base in Pakistan.

But Pakistan, the report noted, was already the primary market in the Asian-Pacific region for Chinese arms exports. That region accounted for US$9 billion of the over US$20 billion in Chinese arms exports from 2011 to 2015. Reuters