China’s Military Is Going Global

Excerpt

At Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, China is nearing completion of what U.S. officials suspect will be its first overseas military outpost in the Indo-Pacific region. This represents a major evolution in Beijing’s regional defense strategy. Beyond facilitating Chinese military adventurism in the South China Sea, the new base could provide the People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.) with a staging ground to monitor and influence vital maritime routes like the Malacca Strait, through which an estimated 40 percent of the world’s trade flows.

But the base also shines a light on Beijing’s broader embrace of an innovative strategy to challenge American military strength that has potentially grave implications for Washington and its allies.

Craig Singleton is a China analyst and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on X @CraigMSingleton. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.