Chinese defence adviser says Djibouti naval facility is a much-needed ‘military base’
Jin Yinan, a former director of the strategic research institute at the PLA’s National Defence University, calls the East Africa navy installation that Beijing has termed a ‘support facility’ a critical military base necessary to protect China’s overseas interests
An influential Chinese defence adviser explicitly called the navy installation China is establishing in the East African country of Djibouti a “military base” and said China will need more facilities like it to protect the nation’s growing overseas interests.
Professor Jin Yinan, a retired major general and former director of the strategic research institute at the PLA’s National Defence University, told an open forum in Hong Kong this week that he expects the project will be finished and soon put into service. But his description of the installation as a military base was a striking departure from Beijing’s past descriptions of the project as a “support facility”.
“We said in the past that we would never build an overseas base but now we build one. Why?“ Jin said. “Will China copy the US to seek hegemony in the world? No. We have to protect the Chinese maritime interest faraway.”
China is constructing a naval base in Djibouti to provide what it calls logistical support in one of the world’s busiest waterways. The defence ministry said in a statement last year that the facility was mostly for resupply purposes for anti-piracy, humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.
Jin’s words are in line with a more progressive outreach by the Chinese military in recent years, marked by the announcement during the annual congress in March that the size of the navy would increase 15 per cent, and the marine corps would receive a major expansion.