While America Slept by O'Brien Robert C.;

Author:O'Brien, Robert C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Encounter Books
Published: 2016-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

China’s Next Move

A Naval Base in the South Atlantic?

I recently returned from Walvis Bay, Namibia, the country’s sole deepwater port and former South Atlantic home to the Royal and South African Navies. Also in port were two of the three ships of the Royal Navy’s Atlantic Patrol Tasking South. A Daring-class Type 45 air warfare destroyer and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary small fleet tanker were both pier side. (The task force’s third ship, HMS Clyde, was presumably on station patrolling the Falklands.) While Walvis Bay enjoys a 138-year history with the Royal Navy, it could soon be home to a powerful Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy surface squadron.

In January 2015, the Namibian reported the existence of a “confidential letter from Namibia’s ambassador to China, Ringo Abed, to Namibia’s foreign minister stat[ing] that ‘a [Chinese] delegation will visit Namibia . . . for discussions . . . on the way forward regarding plans for the proposed naval base in Walvis Bay.’” According to the letter, a Chinese delegation, including technical staff and naval architects, would meet with Namibian officials sometime after March 21, 2015 to discuss a field feasibility study for the base. Beijing has told Namibian diplomats that a “Chinese naval presence will deter any would-be illegal trawlers and smugglers.” China’s Indian Ocean-based “string of pearls” naval base strategy to protect the country’s twenty-first-century vision of a “maritime silk road” looks like it may now extend all the way to the South Atlantic. If such a development came to fruition, it would have major strategic implications for the West.

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