Beijing [China], July 9 (ANI): The PLA is making serious progress to secure new military bases in Cambodia, Tanzania and the United Arab Emirates (including Kiribati). -Pacific region.

Craig Singleton, a foreign policy writer, said Tanzania, Cambodia and the United Arab Emirates are on China’s wish list-and now Kiribati is right next to Hawaii, crossing the tense Taiwan Strait. It projects its power.

Beijing is largely unsatisfied with limiting the pursuit of military bases to the South Pacific. It’s no one’s guess whether Washington can upset Beijing’s plans, Singleton wrote.

The Pentagon’s China Task Force recently saw Beijing as Washington’s “biggest paced challenge,” but the Pentagon’s 2022 budget treats the PLA as a long-term “beyond-the-view” threat. Continues the troublesome tendency.

A good example: The Pentagon’s new Pacific deterrence initiative wish list makes costly, long-term platform-centric investments at the expense of urgent and urgent priorities, such as security aid funding to strengthen important alliances and partnerships. Double it.

Foreign policy also lacks funding from the initiative to reassess the military’s regional stance due to the PLA’s efforts to secure an expanded foothold in the Pacific.

Kiribati’s current impetus for China’s base is eerily reminiscent of Beijing’s efforts to secure the first (and so far only) overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017.

Mr Singleton said China has taken advantage of a combination of clever diplomacy, elite capture and strategically timed investment to defeat the host government.

China’s ambitions in Cambodia are much closer to bearing fruit. Since at least 2020, the US government has acknowledged China’s interest in establishing a military outpost at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base in the Gulf of Thailand.

Satellite images revealed rapid construction at the Ream Naval Base, including the demolition of several US-funded buildings before US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman visited Phnom Penh in June.

Later, Cambodian military attachés were denied full access to the Ream Naval Base during a Cambodian government-sponsored trip aimed at dispelling concerns about China’s activities at the base.

According to foreign policy, Cambodia’s lack of transparency raises the suspicion that the upgrade at Ream is part of a secret Chinese accumulation that allows Beijing to project power into the Indian Ocean.

Washington has long considered the UAE as one of Beijing’s most desirable locations, in addition to Cambodia. The Emirates base will significantly expand the PLA’s maritime footprint in and around important maritime chokepoints, such as the Strait of Hormuz and the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

United Arab Emirates bases could also be part of a chain of other potential Chinese military bases in the Indian Ocean, including Pakistan and Myanmar.

The United Arab Emirates has traditionally worked more closely with the United States than China, but Abu Dhabi was keen to deepen its ties with Beijing as a hedge against Washington’s diplomatic overture to Tehran, Singleton wrote. I am.

Recently, foreign policy reported that a US espionage agency monitored two PLA aircraft heading for the UAE, where they unloaded unspecified cargo.

Recognizing that many of China’s basic efforts are undertaken under the guise of commercial development, the Pentagon has authorized the target countries to call Chinese bluffs to clarify plans to militarize the port. Singleton advised that it should be given.

This includes funding independent audits, legal reviews of potential Chinese port agreements, and contracts banning the docking, landing, or pre-placement of PLA assets at these locations in collaboration with the host government. Includes inserting certain clauses in. Often, Chinese bark, thereby revealing their true intentions.

According to foreign policy, citizens of concern for potential host countries need not look beyond Djibouti, where China claims full territorial sovereignty over land once owned by the Djibouti tribes. (ANI)