S TRATEGIC F ORUM C

Over the previous include a People’s Liberation Army decade, China deployed peacekeepers to conflicts in the oil-producing states role in United Nations peacekeeping, anti-piracy patrols, and a new base in of Sudan and South Sudan, conducted anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Djibouti. [...] By the time ◆◆ C hina’s military presence—its largest the Djibouti base opened, the PLA was already maintaining a presence of more outside the Indo-Pacific—supports than 2,000 personnel in the region—far more than in any other area outside Beijing’s diplomatic relations in the region, contributes to China’s mari- the Indo-Pacific. [...] At the has increased its economic and security role in the re- center is the 1,400-mile Red Sea, which links the Medi- gion, including plans to develop military bases in Sudan terranean and Arabian seas via the Suez Canal and the and Eritrea.10 China, as discussed below, has growing Bab el-Mandeb, respectively. [...] National Defense University (NDU) data- Somali piracy in the mid-2000s, which also spurred the base, the PLA conducted 178 activities with 10 Red Sea North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European countries between 2002 and 2018, including meetings Union (EU) to establish an anti-piracy presence in the of senior officials held both in China and in the region, region, but has continued despite. [...] to use the much longer Cape of Good Hope route.50 It is The Djibouti base can also be interpreted as the thus no surprise that the Red Sea forms a key link in the Western anchor in a larger attempt to protect Chinese “Maritime Silk Road,” the oceanic component of the Belt seaborne trade through the Indian Ocean.