There are warnings today that China is one step closer to establishing a military base in the Solomon Islands after President Xi Jinping authorized an expansion of his country’s armed forces.
State-backed Chinese media said Xi had signed new trial guidelines that allowed non-war Chinese “armed forces operations.”
They went into effect on Wednesday.
The Chinese military has received legal authority to expand its capabilities in overseas deployments. (AP)
But security experts told 9News that the move was the latest in a series of assertive steps by Beijing to expand its power in the Pacific region.
“China is laying the groundwork for a military base in the Solomon Islands … something it could establish quite quickly,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Policy in Australia.
He said the new test powers for China’s military were in line with Beijing’s goals in the Pacific.
The superpower recently gained the power to safeguard its investments in the Solomon Islands by force through a controversial security agreement with the small Pacific nation.
State media said Xi’s guidelines would define the role of the Chinese military in some of its existing operations, such as peacekeeping missions, disaster relief and humanitarian aid.
China signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands earlier this year that allows China to protect the security of its citizens and major projects. (AP)
“Chinese troops can prevent the side effects of regional instability from affecting China, ensuring vital transportation routes for strategic materials such as oil, or safeguarding China’s investments, projects, and personnel abroad,” he said. reported the Global Times.
But Davis said the new powers of China’s People’s Liberation Army were another example of a “gray war”: state-backed coercive actions that do not reach conventional warfare.
Xi’s decision to ratify non-combat “military operations” comes just months after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on the pretext of a “special military operation.”
Security expert John Blaxland, a professor of international security and intelligence studies at the National University of Australia in Canberra, told 9News that Xi’s move goes beyond legalizing the role of the Chinese military. in humanitarian missions abroad.
“It shows that China is taking a more proactive and combative approach,” he said.
Defense Minister Richard Marles is holding talks with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo. (9 News)
Australia should respond by getting more involved with the Pacific nations to counter the Chinese push, he said.
The issue of China’s growing power will be addressed today by Defense Minister Richard Marles and his Japanese counterpart during talks in Tokyo.
“China is trying to shape the world around it in a way that it has never done before. This makes our strategic circumstances complex,” Marles said yesterday.
Earlier this week, Marles met with Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe in Singapore at the first in-person ministerial meeting between the two countries for more than two years.
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