China has dispatched troops to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, formally establishing its first overseas military base. Two Navy warships left the port of Zhanjiang in China taking a number of military personnel across the Indian Ocean, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
The Djibouti naval base will be used to resupply navy ships taking part in peacekeeping missions, particularly off the Yemen and Somalia coasts. “The base will also be conducive to overseas tasks including military cooperation, joint exercises, evacuating and protecting overseas Chinese and emergency rescue, as well as jointly maintaining security of international strategic seaways,” state news agency Xinhua said on Tuesday.
China has officially called the Djibouti base its “logistics facility” and has not yet announced when the base will formally start operations. The tiny nation also hosts United States, Japanese and French troops.
In the past, Chinese banks have funded at least 14 projects in Djibouti valued at at $14.4 billion (over Rs 90,000 crore) in total. There are at least one million Chinese nations in Africa, most of them employed in infrastructure projects that are backed by Beijing.
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