One recent hot topic amid the U.S. Department of Defense’s shift to focusing on “China, China, China” has been China’s embrace of overseas military basing. This has been made more stark by the DoD revealing that China has been interested in establishing a base in at least 18 different countries, though so far Beijing has actually scored only moderate success in establishing a permanent presence in Djibouti, and now likely Cambodia. A common refrain has been concerns about the threat to the United States, ambiguously defined, though this seems geared, at least in part, to justify otherwise non-essential missions, force structure, and capabilities for parts of the department that feel left behind in the focus on China.
We argue, instead, that the United States should consider Chinese overseas basing a competition phase challenge over international influence, because Beijing appears to have neither the intent nor capability through at least 2030 to conduct kinetic offensive operations against the United States. Our judgment is based on an extensive review of Chinese military open source writings, which found that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) researchers are acutely aware of the vulnerabilities of overseas basing, which stop them from being combat-credible in the way that U.S. overseas basing is.
PLA researchers focus much more on leveraging overseas basing for competition phase missions, such as noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs) and sea lane patrols. The one potential driver we could identify that may lead the Chinese leadership to order its overseas forces to strike U.S. forces is if the United States implements a distant blockade of China during a future conflict – which further calls into question the utility of such an idea.
This revised framing could help right-size the U.S. response to China’s basing ambitions amid other higher priorities, and there are indicators the DoD can monitor to help hedge the risk of changing Chinese intent and growing capabilities into the future.
Gauging Policy Concerns About Chinese Overseas Basing
A prominent concern about Chinese overseas basing has been the threat to U.S. interests, though these are rarely spelled out in detail. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been particularly outspoken on this account.
In 2022, then AFRICOM Commander Gen. Stephen Townsend told Congress, “By 2030, Chinese military facilities and technical collection sites in Africa will allow Beijing to project power eastward into the Middle East and Indo-Pacific Theaters and west into the Atlantic. A permanent Chinese naval presence in West Africa would almost certainly require the Department to consider shifts to U.S. naval force posture and pose increased risk to freedom of navigation and U.S. ability to act.” Similarly, Townsend’s successor, Gen. Michael Langley, told Congress in 2023 that a future Chinese base on the Atlantic coast of Africa “would change the whole calculus of the geostrategic global campaign plans of protecting the homeland.” Others have raised similar theoretical concerns.
In an era of DoD leadership emphasis on great power competition with China, some offices have overhyped the actual threat posed by China’s military and bases. While such threat assessments may potentially alleviate parochial concerns over relevance and budget, these assessments undermine the broader defense enterprise’s ability to commit limited resources to meet specific and urgent challenges. It is unclear what Townsend meant when claiming that a Chinese base would impinge on the U.S. ability to act, and this assertion has already prompted some skepticism. For example, does this mean posing a kinetic threat against U.S. forces operating in the Atlantic? These AFRICOM statements misleadingly imply that the PLA has the intent and near-term capability to extend a kinetic threat to U.S. forces.
Exploring Chinese Military Self-Assessments of Overseas Bases’ Utility
Our assessment finds leading PLA researchers do not believe China has a near-term capability to secure its overseas bases, much less use them to conduct offensive operations against the United States. While PLA planners assess themselves already to be capable of noncombat operations from overseas civilian or military logistics facilities, we find they are keenly aware of operational vulnerabilities that prevent them from establishing combat-credible overseas bases.
PLA analysts have consistently wrestled with overseas base hardening and resilience and assess that their current efforts are not sufficient to meet the threat of natural disasters or adversary attacks. China’s current base hardening measures depend heavily on China’s geology, sweeping government permissions to build underground, and plentiful resources such as concrete and steel – none of which will likely be available to secure an overseas facility.
Similarly, PLA researchers are concerned about the political stability and reliability of prospective host nations. In PLA assessments, the countries most likely to grant it an overseas base also tend to be politically unstable and prone to conflict. Moreover, these countries’ political instability may subject the PLA to a turbulent partnership that may entrap China’s military in the host country’s local conflicts or deny the PLA use of its overseas base for critical operations.
The PLA’s operational insecurities likely constrain its intentions and mission planning. In our exhaustive review, we did not find any PLA research suggesting interest or preparations for initiating offensive operations from overseas bases. The missions PLA planners do discuss conducting from overseas bases are projecting power and securing sea lanes, including through the use of force.
While these missions likely include planning for potential future higher-end conflicts, their focus remains securing China’s “distant-ocean lifelines,” which PLA textbooks claim are controlled by the United States. In developing its overseas mission set, the PLA very likely anticipates that it must prepare for potential high-end conflicts defending its resource flows from U.S. attack. This objective drives a set of operations planning assumptions wholly distinct from those the PLA would adopt if its overseas mission set included initiating attacks on U.S. forces.
Other strategic considerations indicate that through to 2030, Beijing is unlikely to deploy sufficient military forces abroad to conduct kinetic strikes against U.S. forces. China’s latest military strategic guideline maintains the PLA’s leading contingency is a potential war over Taiwan, which remains the PLA’s primary focus for planning, force development, and force disposition. The PLA’s Taiwan planning is highly unlikely to spare substantial combat power from its primary theater to widen a war from overseas bases, especially as Beijing doubles down on its coercive campaign against the island.
We also considered the types of forces that Beijing may want to permanently deploy abroad. Despite some more sensational ideas – we’ve heard hypotheticals such as Beijing deploying DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles abroad – we argue that Beijing is likely to avoid deploying such “strategic” capabilities abroad, mostly due to its political need for control over those types of sensitive assets.
An important caveat is warranted for our research, acknowledging the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Although we did not find any PLA publications directly acknowledging plans to conduct offensive operations on U.S. forces from overseas bases, it is possible other indicators of PLA intent and capability may lie outside of the open-source materials we reviewed. Still, this does not erase the PLA’s evident operational insecurities or its strategic focus on a Taiwan contingency, for which we found ample evidence. Moreover, PLA researchers have historically published on a remarkable range of their interests, including models of multivector missile strikes to mission kill an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
While there is always the chance that the Chinese leadership will order overseas PLA forces to conduct an all-out attack on nearby U.S. forces at the start of a China-U.S. conflict, this would very likely be a suicide mission, and we see no reason to assume Beijing would set out to waste its forces in such a way. In conjunction with the PLA’s focus on a Taiwan contingency and pervasive concerns about key weaknesses making overseas bases vulnerable in a high-end conflict against the United States, we conclude that “PLA overseas bases are unlikely to manifest into a significant wartime threat to U.S. forces and interests through at least 2030.”
A U.S. Blockade Against China Risks Driving Chinese Retaliation
A U.S. blockade against China during a conflict was the one driver we could identify for potential Chinese use of force, which has important implications for the feasibility of such an idea.
The Chinese leadership and military has long been worried about the prospects of the United States cutting off Chinese energy and other imports during a conflict. This concern was made famous by Hu Jintao’s 2003 speech about the “Malacca Dilemma” and spelled out by the PLA Academy of Military Science’s 2013 “Science of Military Strategy” textbook, which stated,
The United States and other major powers control the world’s primary strategic lines of communication, posing great security risks to China’s overseas transit…. [ These SLOCs] have become the ‘lifelines’ of our socioeconomic development, and although in overall terms they are kept unimpeded they are nonetheless not owned by us, nor are they controlled by us. Once a crisis or war at sea occurs, our sea transport has the possibility to be cut off.
Although blockades have been a popular idea since at least 2012, they are both difficult to implement and unlikely to compel Beijing to stop fighting in a conflict. Moreover, proponents of blockades often overlook that Beijing could respond kinetically in some fashion. Our research finds, instead, that “PLA researchers highlight the ability to secure shipping lanes as a leading mission enabled by overseas bases.”
This means that Washington should not make a flawed assumption that Beijing will forgo a military response, since it appears a U.S. blockade could drive the Chinese leadership to order its overseas forces to conduct kinetic attacks on U.S. forces in retaliation.
A Better Framing: Bases as Another Aspect of China-U.S. Competition
The DoD should consider Chinese overseas basing to be a competition-phase challenge that enables Chinese security cooperation and builds broader Chinese influence through regional presence. Even though overseas military bases may not be very useful to China in a great power conflict, they can still support Chinese priorities during competition.
For example, they could support NEOs and sea lane patrols, which would both protect Chinese citizens and economic interests while also currying influence with other countries that benefit. This is exactly what the PLA base in Djibouti is intended for and already delivering on.
Given the scope of Chinese ambitions for overseas basing – the DoD lists 18 countries Beijing has considered – it is very unlikely that Washington will be able to prevent all new overseas bases going forward. That means the United States will have to learn to live with Chinese military troops deployed abroad and operating near U.S. forces.
We were heartened that AFRICOM under General Langley more recently appears to have at least partially evolved its approach to Chinese basing by also considering it a problem for competition. As he told Congress in March, “We seek to out-compete the PRC in the security cooperation arena – and African militaries see the difference.” Ensuring high-quality U.S. security cooperation and delivering for the needs of regional partners is indeed the correct way to compete with China and limit the utility of its overseas bases.
We acknowledge some may want to hedge the risks of an uncertain future, but there are reasonable limits to what could be involved and publicly available indicators and warnings to monitor. Planning for a worst-case scenario, Chinese overseas bases would seem like a good mission for U.S. special operations forces, not new, large forces deployed to distant, secondary theaters.
How to Focus on Competition and Hedge Potential Risk
Accurately assessing the likely threat that PLA overseas bases are likely to impose on U.S. forces or interests offers important framing to the challenge and enables the DoD to prioritize its initiatives accordingly. We offer three recommendations for the Department to right-size the threat of PLA overseas basing to U.S. interests through 2030 as well as a potential indicator to monitor.
First, avoid overinvesting in preparations for a near-term contest initiated from PLA overseas bases. While the PLA continues to seek military facilities and access agreements abroad, its self-assessed capabilities remain far from being able to realize combat operations from overseas bases. Through 2030, DoD policy should regard the expansion of PLA overseas bases as competition challenges rather than urgent wartime threats.
Second, clearly distinguish between Chinese commercial partnerships and military bases. PLA academic urgency on the need to harden overseas bases suggests that PLA planners are focused on overseas operations or conflicts that cannot be sustained by commercial investments in foreign ports and dual-use logistics facilities. These facilities are important nodes of PLA presence and influence, but the DoD should not treat them as overseas bases in hiding.
Third, monitor PLA maintenance and repair capabilities at overseas partner facilities. The PLA has yet to demonstrate the ability to conduct the sophisticated repairs necessary to sustain combat operations from overseas commercial ports. Demonstrating that capability could indicate host country willingness to support PLA operations in conflict.
