Honored to be Quoted! “China Secretly Building PLA Naval Facility in Cambodia, Western Officials Say”
Ellen Nakashima and Cate Cadell, “China Secretly Building PLA Naval Facility in Cambodia, Western Officials Say,” Washington Post, 6 June 2022.
China is secretly building a naval facility in Cambodia for the exclusive use of its military, with both countries denying that is the case and taking extraordinary measures to conceal the operation, Western officials said.
The military presence will be on the northern portion of Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand, which is slated to be the site of a groundbreaking ceremony this week, according to the officials…. …
The Western officials said they expect there will be an acknowledgment at the ceremony of Chinese involvement in financing and construction of the expansion of Ream Naval Base, but not of plans for its use by the People’s Liberation Army. The expansion plans were finalized in 2020, and, significantly, called for the Chinese military to have “exclusive use of the northern portion of the base, while their presence would remain concealed,” a second official said. …
The two governments have taken pains to mask the presence of the Chinese military at Ream, the official said. For instance, foreign delegations visiting the base are permitted access only to preapproved locations. During these visits, Chinese military personnel at the base wear uniforms similar to their Cambodian counterparts’ or no uniform at all to avoid suspicion from outside observers, the official said. …
The Chinese official told The Post that ground station technology for a BeiDou navigation satellite system was located at the Chinese portion of Ream Naval Base. …
China’s navy is already the world’s largest by numbers of vessels. The U.S. Navy has 297 battle-force ships — carriers, destroyers, submarines, etc. — according to the Congressional Research Service, while China has 355 and is projected to have 460 by 2030, according to last year’s Pentagon report.
But, said Andrew Erickson, research director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College, “as impressive as those numbers are, without a significant network of robust overseas facilities, their ability to use them falls off rapidly with distance from China.” …
Djibouti was a logical first step for a military outpost in that it is in a region far from China in which Beijing wants to have a presence, in this case to secure its growing Middle Eastern energy interests, Erickson said. Also, the United States, France and Japan have long had military bases there, he noted. “The question then becomes, how do you start filling out the board?”
Cambodia is “a no-brainer” in that Hun Sen, prime minister since 1985, is “extremely amenable,” Erickson said, noting that the Cambodian leader has had a long strategic partnership with Beijing.
“But the problem is Cambodia is a small country in a tough spot,” he said. “It’s trying to have it both ways: maximum strategic collaboration with China with minimum regional pushback. That contradiction is going to be exposed by the undeniable development of this facility.” … … …
(***Please note: Unless otherwise specified, the views posted, reposted, linked to, or otherwise expressed on Dr. Andrew S. Erickson’s research websites, social media accounts, and other electronic and print sources do not represent the official policies or estimates of the U.S. Navy or any other organization of the U.S. government. Retweets, links, or follows, etc., do not imply endorsement in any way. None of these activities should be construed as political statements.***)
