Beijing hopes to gain a further global foothold with plans to rebuild an abandoned U.S. military airfield runway and bridge on l’île de Kanton, which belongs to Kiribati, showing that China’s further foothold in the Pacific Ocean is of great strategic importance. Nathalie Guibert, Le Monde China’s further investments around the world, including the construction of dual-use ports for trade and military purposes, have raised concerns.
An important island in the Pacific
The Pacific island nation of Kiribati, with a population of 120,000, has one of the world’s largest exclusive economic waters, covering more than 3.5 million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean. And with Canton Island halfway between Hawaii and Australia, 3,000 kilometers southwest of the U.S. military base in Hawaii, any major facility on Canton Island would provide China with a stronghold deep into an area that has maintained strong ties with the United States and its allies since World War II.
In a May 6 article by Le Monde writer Natalie Gilbert, who noted that U.S. forces used Canton Island to bomb Japan and its surrounding islands from 1942 to 1943, Reuters on May 5 cited lawmakers from the Pacific island nation of Kiribati as disclosing that China had made plans to upgrade the local airstrip and bridge on Canton Island to restore the base where military aircraft had been stationed during World War II. The undisclosed plan involves the construction of the coral atoll Canton Island, which is strategically located between Asia and the Americas.
However, Le Monde and Reuters were unable to obtain confirmation from the Kiribati government of the Chinese reconstruction plan at this time.
Canton Island, which has no fresh water and is uninhabited, has been a nature reserve since 2006. China plans to rebuild a 2-kilometer-long airstrip after the U.S. military used Canton Island as part of an “air ferry” transport route between Hawaii and the South Pacific during World War II. After the war, civilian airlines used the island as a trans-Pacific stopover for refueling.
Until the late 1960s, the U.S. used the island for space and missile tracking, but today, Canton Island is used only for emergencies. Analysis indicates that once the existing runway is upgraded, it will be long enough to support the deployment of fighter jets. If further upgraded and extended, it would also be sufficient to support the deployment of large transport aircraft and maritime patrol aircraft, among others.
China Extends Influence
Traditionally, the United States has had influence in the region, and the possible rebuilding of the airstrip on Kiribati’s Kanton Island by China has drawn attention, interpreted as Beijing’s further expansion of its sphere of influence through investment and credit in the Pacific.
The analysis points out that China also has plans to build container ports in the region, Kiribati and Solomon established diplomatic relations with Beijing from 2019 after breaking diplomatic ties with Taiwan to join the Belt and Road Initiative launched by Xi Jinping, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Kiribati President Ma Mao at the Great Hall of the People on Jan. 6, 2020, and the same Pacific island nation of Vanuatu to build a military port with Chinese funding. Controversy has arisen and plans are currently on hold.
The other four Pacific island nations of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Nauru and Palau are now the rare countries that continue to maintain diplomatic and economic and trade relations with Taiwan, and Palau’s new president, John Whipple, has called for greater U.S. investment in the region.
China has made significant economic development efforts, purchasing some or all of more than a dozen ports around the world since 1990, and Southeast Asia is among the major areas of Chinese investment. The current increase in Chinese investment in Pacific ports and islands is part of a longer-term strategic consideration, and concerns have been raised over the dual commercial and military use of Chinese investments in the ports, although Beijing does not acknowledge that the investments have military uses.
Retired French military officer Hugues Eudeline, also an expert on the Chinese navy, said China is investing in ports in other countries for economic and trade reasons first, to protect its commercial interests, to use large transport ships that need to be resupplied, and secondly, for aircraft carriers that need ports of call on the road.
China looks for ports of call
U.S. Africa commander Gen. Stephen Townsend expressed concern in the Senate on April 22 about China’s port in Djibouti, saying the country has completed construction of a large terminal at the mouth of the territory and has the ability to dock large-capacity ships, including China’s aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, which he believes are increasing the Chinese navy’s military power.
Retired French military officer Hugo Yudelin believes China needs airports around the world, such as the construction of a port in Kiribati, and also needs to equip the country’s Canton Island with a dual-use airfield.
The pressure of China’s economic development one triggers corresponding geopolitical consequences. In the past decade, Beijing has invested in some 15 port infrastructures across the continent. In the Mediterranean, Western strategists now fear Chinese plans for a deep-water port in the Cherchell region of Algeria.
On the Atlantic coast, the Portuguese port of Sines, the first gateway to Europe from the Atlantic, has just announced that it should relaunch a tender for foreign investors. China, which has invested in a stake in one of the four terminals of the port of Sines, has also expressed interest in further investment in the port.
Chinese investments on the Atlantic coast have raised many concerns, and Portuguese Defense Minister João Gomes Cravinho said at a May 4 seminar organized by the German Marshall Foundation (GMF) that we must explain to our partners that we do not want to make the Atlantic an area of geopolitical confrontation.
Recent Comments