China’s naval base proposal may raise suspicion

Gulf of Aden
Just when you think that unmanned drones, “asymmetric warfare” and the “hi-tech battlefield” have taken over theories of modern warfare, China always seems to pull you back to the 19th century, with its emphasis on mammoth standing armies and sprawling naval armadas.

But Beijing’s preference for these traditional means to project power appeared anything but a throwback last week, when a Chinese admiral proposed the construction of a naval base in the Gulf of Aden.

Although Rear Admiral Yin Zhou, a senior official at the navy’s Equipment Research Centre, did not specify where a hub might be built, any base would deepen the Asian superpower’s presence in the Arabian Sea and the western Indian Ocean, already the farthest westward advance of Chinese naval power since the waning days of the Silk Road 600 years ago.

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