David Rothkopf, The National: China has opened a military base in Djibouti. The geopolitics of the Middle East will never be the same again
Last week, China sent an unmistakable message that its role in the world is changing.
The world changed this past week in ways that it may take decades to fully appreciate. With the opening of its first overseas military base in Djibouti, China sent an unmistakable message that its role in the world is changing. The implications for the Middle East and Africa are immediate, but the larger message is that China is no longer pretending to be an inward-looking, exclusively Asian power.
Of course, that stance, one that dates back centuries in Chinese history, has largely been a fiction for decades. Since acquiring nuclear weapons in the 1960s and building an inter-continental ballistic missile capability that now includes submarines and land-based delivery systems and estimates exceeding more than 90 missiles capable of reaching the United States, the country has been a formidable global power for a long time.
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WNU Editor: China's economic and military presence in the Middle East is small when compared to the U.S. ..... but it is a sign that times are changing, and more to the point .... one can only imagine the presence that China will have ten years from now.
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