Important Takeaways:

• Port call: China’s Navy scouting range of sites for future overseas bases
• China has fully militarized at least three islands it built in the disputed South China Sea and is now looking around the world to establish a network of naval bases to bolster its ability to project power and match the global reach of the U.S. Navy.
• Beijing’s first overseas naval base, situated in the small country of Djibouti on the Horn of Africa and operational since 2017, has given it a foothold in the Arabian Sea. National security experts are speculating about the next outpost.
• The most likely possibilities are Sri Lanka, where Beijing has made its largest overseas commercial port investment in the past decade, and Equatorial Guinea, which is strategically located on West Africa’s Atlantic coast and could put Chinese naval assets squarely in America’s backyard.
• John C. Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in March 2022
  • “I think over the past 20 years we’ve witnessed the largest military buildup since World War II by the PRC,” Adm. Aquilino said at the time, using China’s formal name. “They have advanced all their capabilities, and that buildup of weaponization is destabilizing to the region.”

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