Why communist China’s first foreign military base? Location, Location, Location

Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Navy troops march in Djibouti’s independence day parade on June 27.

 

UNITED NATIONS — Nearly six hundred years ago, huge Chinese fleets plied the Indian Ocean sailing as far as Arabia and the East African coast.

The epic seaborne expeditions carried out between 1405 and 1432 under Adm. Cheng Ho and during the glorious Ming Dynasty were larger and far more encompassing than subsequent Portuguese and Dutch voyages almost a century later. China’s Imperial Court sought trade, tribute, and exotic treasures, not formal colonization nor religious conversion.

Would China Launch a “Pearl Harbor-Style” Strike on America?

Whether the Chinese would launch a Pearl Harbor-style attack on America is debatable only by those who never learned from history and refuse to see the events building before their very eyes today. The CCP and PLA make quite clear in the following previous posts their objectives:

War Is Not Far from Us and Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century

China’s Military Threatens America: ‘We Will Hurt You’

China’s leader is telling the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for war

 

“Our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites.”

– Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian, December 2005.

 

 

If Imperial Japan’s past turns out to be a Rising China’s prologue, Beijing could well order a Pearl Harbor-style attack on America, possibly within a decade.  Potential targets range from American aircraft carriers in the Taiwan Strait and bombers on the runways of Okinawa and Guam to the military satellite network serving as the eyes and ears of the U.S. high command.  Even civilian infrastructure like America’s electricity grid may be at risk.

If you believe that prediction to be alarmist, consider these historical parallels with another rising Asian power during the early 20th century.

Renminbi gets official notice as trade currency in China’s border nations

Thanks to intense promotional efforts by the Chinese government in recent years, the renminbi has become an increasingly common “hard currency” in the frontier cities of neighboring nations, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar (Burma). The trend has impacted local underground banking activities, reports our sister newspaper Want Daily.

In Mong Cai, Vietnam, a city thriving from cross-border trade with China, the renminbi is far more popular than the US dollar. As a result, the Vietnamese government has acknowledged the renminbi as a legitimate currency for circulation in the area and is developing the city into a special economic zone focusing on trade with China.

China betting on overland energy-supply lines

SINGAPORE – China’s strategy to diversify supply routes for its rapidly rising energy imports has just taken a major step forward.

On July 15, natural gas from Myanmar (aka Burma) started to flow along a recently completed pipeline that stretches for 1,100 kilometers from the sea coast, through jungle and mountains, to Kunming in southwest China.

There it will feed into other gas lines supplying homes, industries and power plants generating electricity in the world’s biggest energy user.

Australia at risk of becoming an island as Pacific prospers

PORT VILA, Vanuatu — First it was the Pacific Century, then the Asia Pacific Century, then the Asian Century with a recent nod towards the Chinese Century. Now we are hearing of the Indo-Pacific Century. Hollywood to Bollywood, as one US military officer put it recently.

A great sweep of ocean from India to the eastern shores of California is the strategic big picture, we are told.

Myanmar’s ‘goldrush’ lures foreigners

It is an expat “goldrush” driven by the promise of an economic boom after the rollback of many sanctions following the end of decades of junta rule.

However, some, at least, are also drawn by a commitment to help rebuild the impoverished nation.

The once-empty Western bars of central Yangon are now doing a roaring trade, hotels are fully booked and networking nights thrum with the chatter of new arrivals hungry for contacts in the city.