China outshines US as global scramble for bases heats up

Editor’s note: Sections of this article in Newsweek feature quotes from CSP Senior Fellow Grant Newsham. Those excerpts have been posted below. To read the full article by Didi Kirsten Tatlow, click here.

China’s ambassador to Vanuatu was exceptionally busy in December as the tiny Pacific Island nation signed a security deal with America’s key ally Australia.

Starting on December 13, when Vanuatu and Australia sealed the agreement, Ambassador Li Minggang hosted three events over three days in Vanuatu – including at the massive Chinese embassy in the capital Port Vila. Li was at pains to highlight China’s extensive involvement in the region with aid and infrastructure and its 40 years of diplomatic ties to a country where the U.S. has no embassy on the ground.

Beijing’s message was clear: China was there for the long haul—and it was bringing gifts.

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“The Chinese look at the whole map and are thinking globally,” said Grant Newsham, a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. and a former U.S. diplomat and reserve head of intelligence for Marine Forces Pacific.

“They are building ports and airfields in Latin America on both sides, in Africa on both sides, and on the west side of the Indian Ocean. They’ve been looking around the Azores and Greenland and a bunch of other places,” Newsham told Newsweek in an interview.

“The idea is to have a network of ports and airfields to which they have access, and some actual bases as well. In other words, they’ll have the same infrastructure as the Americans and a military with global reach as well,” Newsham said.

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China has cast a wide net in the region, leveraging extensive commercial investments and loans into security agreements which could act as a precursor for bases, said Newsham of the Center for Security Policy.

“The Chinese tend to put down a marker in a lot of places at once looking to see where they make some progress. Sort of like a guy who goes to the horse races and bets on every horse,” Newsham said.

Read the full article.