24 February 2018

China’s Overseas Basing: Will the PLA Follow the Renminbi?

Joel Wuthnow

The People’s Liberation Army will play an increasingly visible role in and beyond Eurasia, through deployments and diplomacy.

Recent media reports suggesting that China may soon open a second overseas military base, to be located in Pakistan, raise the question: where will it end? Will China follow other great powers, which garrisoned forces in large numbers to protect their commercial empires, or will its global military footprint be smaller? While China may open additional naval facilities to support its overseas interests, high costs and limited benefits impose constraints on developing a larger U.S.-style network of bases. However, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will play an increasingly visible role in and beyond Eurasia, through deployments and diplomacy. This means that the United States will have to continually reevaluate its own military partnerships in the region.

More Pearls on the String

In the mid-2000s, U.S. and Indian analysts began discussing a notional Chinese “String of Pearls” strategy, anticipating that Beijing would use commercial investments in ports throughout the Indian Ocean region and beyond to support operations in a crisis or war. Rejected at the time by Chinese officials as a product of foreign-threat inflation, the thesis has been somewhat borne out by recent developments. In August, China established itsfirst overseas base in Djibouti, sitting astride a key maritime “chokepoint” linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. More recent media reports indicate that China has made progress towards a second base, to be located on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast near the Iranian border.

These facilities provide a number of clear-cut strategic and operational benefits, including reducing the costs of long-range Chinese naval deployments, such as those that have been allocated to anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since 2008; acting as hubs through which mass evacuations of Chinese citizens can be conducted, a need highlighted by the evacuation of Chinese nationals from Libya in 2011 and Yemen in 2015; providing increased protection of China’s extensive energy import routes, which are vulnerable to interdiction in critical locations such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca; and serving as places from which Chinese intelligence operators can monitor civilian and military activities, likely a mission of PLA units in Djibouti.

A broader “String of Pearls” strategy, including bases in places like Namibia orSri Lanka, could provide similar benefits, assuming that status of forces agreements could be worked out with host governments. Additional bases would also likely be supported by China’s naval establishment. Of all the services, the navy has most actively embraced a mission of protecting China’s overseas interests, a burden formally placed on the PLA by the Chinese Communist Party in 2004 under a rubric known as the “new historic missions.” One of the key criteria for promotions in the navy—an indicator of the service’s priorities—is overseas experience, especially in the Indian Ocean region. The reason for the navy’s enthusiasm is relatively straightforward: missions in distant regions will require more funding to produce large surface vessels, such as aircraft carriers and supporting ships.

Broader Aspirations?

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