By Annie Wu
From the article:
China is rapidly expanding its military base in Djibouti, a small African country on the Red Sea, according to a recent analysis by a retired Indian Army officer published in The Print, an Indian news outlet.
According toThe Print report published on Sept. 10, satellite images reveal that the Chinese military base, which is located just miles from the United States’ Camp Lemmonier military base, has been visited by several LPD (landing platform docks) naval ships, which are capable of “embarking, transporting, and landing expeditionary forces along with requisite equipment.”
These ships have “blue-water capability,” which means the ability to operate far from a home port and in open water.
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In February, Djibouti prematurely ended a contract with Dubai’s port operator DP World, to run the Doraleh Container Terminal (different than the China-financed port). The port seizure led Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the top U.S. military commander overseeing troops in Africa, to worry that Djibouti may hand over control of the terminal to China—to which the African nation owes a significant debt.
More than 80 percent of the country’s foreign debt is owed to China, according to a March report by the U.S. think tank Center for Global Development. Meanwhile, the country’s crippling public debt is valued at about 88 percent of the country’s overall $1.72 billion GDP.
Read the full article here.