The small East African nation of Djibouti has ordered US troops to leave their secondary military base in the country, Camp Obock, in order to turn it over to China, reports Duowei News, a media outlet run by overseas Chinese, citing California-based left-wing magazine CounterPunch.
Due to China's significant investments in the country, Djibouti president Ismail Omar Guelleh has publicly spoken of the importance the country's "new friends from Asia," according to the magazine report.
If the reports are true, Beijing will undoubtedly be pleased to finally establish an overseas military base for itself.
Camp Obock is a secondary base to the only permanent US military base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, which houses 4,000 soldiers and is a major drone base for the US in the region and plays an important role in the US's intelligence gathering operations targeting Islamic State and al-Qaida.
Djibouti, strategically located on the Horn of Africa on the western bank of the Gulf of Aden at the neck of the Red Sea as it passes into the Indian Ocean, is also one of landlocked Ethiopia's only access routes to the sea and China is currently constructing a US$3 billion railroad from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to Djibouti and has invested US$400 million to modernize its underdeveloped port, according to the magazine. The US, in comparison, pays just US$63 million a year for use of Camp Lemonnier.
The announcement calling for the vacation of the base was made the day after a visit to the country in May by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, which has raised concerns in Washington given the prospect that 10,000 Chinese troops will occupy a base neighboring the main US base in Africa, according to the magazine.
Read the full story at Want China Times