The world’s largest navy is about to change

China may have the world’s largest navy but it has only one foreign base. Now that’s about to change.

China has the world’s largest navy. But it has nowhere to go. Now diplomatic storm clouds are billowing over the Indian and Pacific Oceans as it tries to change that.

Great empires may have navies, but global empires need ports to sustain them.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the “sun never set on the British Empire” because it built a worldwide network of ports including names like Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Germany, seeking its place under the sun before World War I, set up in parts of the Pacific including Bougainville, Nauru, Manus and the Solomon Islands.

Now there’s a new empire of the sun.

And it’s on the hunt for strategic real estate to allow it to project its influence deep into the Pacific and Indian oceans.

According to last year’s Pentagon report, China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has more than 350 vessels. That makes it larger in number than the 297-ship US Navy. The US, however, still has a (rapidly declining) lead in major surface combatants such as aircraft carriers and destroyers.

“As impressive as those numbers are, without a significant network of robust overseas facilities, their ability to use them falls off rapidly with distance from China,” US Naval War College research director Dr Andrew Erickson told The Washington Post.

🇨🇳🇰🇭China-aided renovation project kicks off in #Cambodia's Ream Naval Base

Chinese Amb. Wang Wentian: The project conforms with intl. laws and practices and doesn't target any third party.

Cambodian constitution doesn't permit foreign military bases or presence on its soil. pic.twitter.com/4zSpXwVfiu

— Shen Shiwei 沈诗伟 (@shen_shiwei) June 9, 2022

His words came as China and Cambodia ceremoniously broke ground on a major new port project.

Phnom Penh flatly denies China’s military has anything to do with it. It’s all about “Cambodia’s naval capacity to protect maritime territorial integrity and combat maritime crimes”.

Beijing’s Communist Party-controlled media is outraged at the suggestion.

“The US has turned a blind eye to Cambodia’s rumour-debunking voices with its insidious and poisonous intentions – to sow discord between China and Cambodia and to promote the China threat theory.”

But The Post this week reported a sudden shift in Beijing’s public position.

One official admitted that “a portion” of the base will, in fact, be dedicated to Chinese military and scientific purposes.

And that may be a sign of things to come.

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Empire of the sun

China needs the sea. Some 75 per cent of its oil is imported. A similar proportion of its trade goods cross through the narrow Malacca Strait linking the Indian and Pacific oceans. And much of its enormous “Belt and Road Initiative” investment has been sunk into Southeast Asian and Indian Ocean countries.

It’s only natural for it to have a military interest there.

“For any modern bluewater navy, being able to protect such SLOCs (sea lines of communication) in time of tension or war would be considered important,” Griffith Asia analyst Dr Peter Layton writes in Maritime Defence Monitor.

The East and South Pacific have less strategic value. But it is of diplomatic – and nationalistic – importance. Beijing wants a “sphere of influence”.

The PLAN is rapidly constructing a large US-style naval “fleet train” of tankers and replenishment vessels. But the best of these can only sustain a small task force for about two weeks.

“The combination of having few replenishment ships and the considerable distance from China has forced the PLAN to adopt a support model built around an overseas naval base, supplemented by commercial facilities as necessary,” Dr Layton says.

It’s a significant shift in rhetoric.

After decades of declaring overseas military facilities as a mark of imperialism, it wants its own.

It has one. At Djibouti in northeast Africa.

Now it wants more.

“Justifying this change, [China’s] official statement argued the base was needed for missions … such as escorting, peacekeeping and humanitarian aid in Africa and West Asia, military co-operation, joint exercises, evacuating and protecting overseas Chinese and emergency rescue,’” Dr Layton notes.

But warships are vulnerable alone. They need support from land-based aircraft and missiles. They need somewhere to re-arm, restock – and perhaps repair – when so far from home.

“As Beijing has demonstrated in the South China Sea when it claimed and subsequently militarised unoccupied islands, the Chinese government has a track record of publicly denying its true intentions while taking steps to enlarge its global military footprint,” warns Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Australia chair Charles Edel.

Military-civilian fusion

In Cambodia, slick marketing shows a glistening Dara Sakor tourist resort basking in pristine waters and rainforest. It features a deep-sea port. Nearby is an oversized new international airport. And across the bay is the Ream Naval Base.

Together, they represent a triumph of Beijing’s policy of “military-civil fusion”. Essentially, it means civilian construction projects must follow Chinese military guidance.

The runway is far longer than needed for even the biggest civilian airliner. But its 3400m length is ideal for heavily laden bombers. And a proposed nearby seaport can support luxury cruise ships – or large warships.

Now a groundbreaking ceremony at the Ream Naval Base across the bay marks a significant upgrade of the Cambodian military facility. Courtesy of Beijing.

#Cambodia defence minister Tea Banh shares photos of him swimming with Chinese ambassador Wang Wentian this afternoon at a Sihanoukville beach - amid reports expecting a Sino-Cambodian event at Ream Naval Base this week to potentially highlight China’s roles at the facility. pic.twitter.com/eVZkXl80q6

— Chhengpor Aun (@aunchhengpor) June 7, 2022

The US funded the construction of new buildings there in the 2010s. But they’ve already been bulldozed and replaced by two larger – Chinese built – structures.

Washington Post reporters attending the ceremony noticed Chinese military personnel wearing Cambodian-style uniforms. Locals then told them it was to make them less conspicuous – it’s unconstitutional for foreign troops to be stationed on Cambodian soil.

China’s state-controlled Global Times reports Prime Minister Hun Sen’s angry retort: “Ream Naval Base is not a place for thieves or robbers. You can say whatever you want. I allowed you to visit, not to investigate or inspect.”

Alone, freshly dredging Ream Naval Base’s channels and adding new piers don’t appear to offer any significant advantage for Chinese strategic ambitions. But, with the military-civil projects across the bay, the combined infrastructure has the potential to be far more intimidating.

From Dara Sakor International Airport, China’s bombers and surveillance aircraft could fly far over the Andaman Sea and into the eastern Indian Ocean. And they could cover the Malacca Strait.

Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics

“Despite repeated claims from China that it has no intention of establishing a military base in the Solomon Islands or elsewhere in the region, its track record and its ambitions suggest otherwise,” Mr Edel says.

This is evident in Djibouti.

The Doraleh Multipurpose Port – right alongside the official Chinese naval base – is controlled by China Merchants Port Holdings. Part of its commercial dock has been reserved for PLAN use.

It’s a similar story in Pakistan.

The Gwadar port is being redeveloped under the Belt and Road economic corridor initiative. It includes a significant military facility overlooking the Indian Ocean.

Chinese state-controlled corporations operate other Indo-Pacific commercial ports.

Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, the Seychelles, Maldives, Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Myanmar may be “vulnerable to Chinese pressure for their ports also to support the PLAN if necessary,” Dr Layton says.

Now Chinese companies – all of which are required to have Communist Party representatives on their boards – are striving to develop deepwater ports and airfields in Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

“Beijing’s search for a military foothold in the Pacific represents an expansion of what it has already done elsewhere,” Mr Edel says. “Establishing a presence in this region could accomplish several strategic goals at once – securing Chinese sea lines of communication, increasing intelligence collection on allied forces, keeping Australia and New Zealand boxed in, and complicating any US plans to move forces into the region.”

For tiny nations such as the Solomon Islands, it represents a significant cash and infrastructure injection. But they’re in no position to resist China’s overwhelming economic influence.

“Local domestic political factors, though, could always outweigh any such future Chinese pressure and, accordingly, create real uncertainty for the PLAN,” Dr Leyton says. “The PLAN, therefore, can’t realistically plan to rely on such ‘string of pearls’ ports, and they seem an unreliable foundation for Chinese long-term strategic policy.”