JAKARTA - Indonesia is among the countries considered by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as locations for the latter’s military logistics facilities, wrote a US Department of Defense (Pentagon) annual report released on Tuesday (1/9).
In total, according to the report, 12 countries have been "likely considered" by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) as locations for its logistics facilities, namely Angola, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Seychelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. Currently the PLA has a support base in Djibouti.
“The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has tasked the PLA to develop the capability to project power outside China’s borders and immediate periphery to secure the PRC’s growing overseas interests and advance its foreign policy goals,” the report said.
The report, which was submitted to the US Congress, highlighted China’s plan to use the PLA as a tool to advance its foreign policy and strengthen the country’s ability “to counter an intervention by an adversary in the Indo-Pacific region and project power globally”.
Among the concerns highlighted in the report is the possibility of a Taiwan contingency, for which the PLA is developing capabilities to respond to third-party intervention.
Beyond the Taiwan issue, China is also said to remain focused on the South China Sea, especially after a tribunal in 2016 ruled that any claim to China’s “historic rights” in the region could not exceed its maritime rights as set out in the Law of the Sea Convention.
“As the PRC’s overseas interests have grown over the past two decades, the Party’s leaders have increasingly pushed the PLA to think about how it will operate beyond China’s borders and its immediate periphery to advance and defend these interests,” the report said. (MS)