Chinas scramble for desert island supremacy: How Beijing has rushed to militarise tropical reefs and build up String of Pearls alliance across Indian Oceans paradise isles - as Starmer faces fury for giving up Chagos
For years, China has taken over uninhabited reef islands and transformed them into high-tech military bases, while simultaneously engaging in military diplomacy to cultivate allies across the Indo-Pacific.
For years, China has taken over uninhabited reef islands and transformed them into high-tech military bases, while simultaneously engaging in military diplomacy to cultivate allies across the Indo-Pacific.
Beijing is seeking to establish strategic strongpoints - known as its String of Pearls -from the South China Sea, through the Indian Ocean, all the way to the Arabian Gulf.
And now China hawks have expressed fears that Keir Starmer could have handed Xi Jinping a major win after ceding the Chagos Islands, an archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean, to Beijing ally Mauritius.
While the government insists the deal secures the future of the US-UK base on Diego Garcia, leading Tories have expressed fears that the deal with Mauritius could open the door to China establishing a base on another of the clusters uninhabited islands.
Mauritius is free to rent them out to anybody else, including, for example, China, former security minister Tom Tugendhat warned, adding that the country had not given any assurances to the UK that it would not do so.
It comes amid concerns that China is actively working to increase its presence across the Indo-Pacific, both commercially and militarily, as it seeks to establish a network of friendly ports and its own military bases abroad.
The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands (formerly the Oil Islands) is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean
Hughes Reef appears to have a helicopter pad and a multi-story building at the other end, complete with what looks like a large swimming pool
Aerial pictures from 2022 show military bases that China has spent a decade building on remote reefs and atolls in the South China Sea, as it tries to lay claim over the entire region
In 2017, Chinese officials opened the countrys first official overseas military base in the East African nation of Djibouti.
Ostensibly built to provide support to the Chinese navys counter-piracy mission off the Somalian coast, it marked a major step toward President Xis goal of making his military the worlds most powerful.
As well as the east African base, China has considered adding military logistics facilities in 19 further countries around the world, according to the US Defense Department.
China already holds significant influence over strategically important ports dotted throughout the Indian Ocean thanks to its huge investments and building of diplomatic ties around the region.
The ports of Gwadar, in Pakistan, and Hambantota, in Sri Lanka, are effectively at Chinas disposal, and can be used for operations.
In Myanmar, it has intensified its efforts to complete the Kyaukphyu deep-water port - pumping $7.3billion into its development.
Analysts have suggested that the port could have capacity to host Peoples Liberation Army Navy vessels, though the establishment of a formal base is unlikely, with the economic influence it would give China over the impoverished nation seen as a greater concern.
Equipment and materials sit at a developemt site near Gwadar Port, operated by China Overseas Ports Holding Co., in Gwadar, Pakistan
In the Maldives, China is reportedly working to expand an artificial island and is increasing its investments.
The Maldivian government signed a pact with Beijing in March stating that the Peoples Liberation Army and Navy would provide free military assistance to the islands.
Chinas footprint on the low-lying coral islands has grown over recent years, with major infrastructure projects such as the $200million China-Maldives Friendship Bridge showing its significant influence in the popular tourist hotspot.
Sri Lankan port workers hold a Chinese national flag to welcome Chinese research ship Yuan Wang 5, bristling with surveillance equipment, as it arrives in Hambantota International Port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, on Aug. 16, 2022
Nearly 80 percent of Chinese oil imports flow through the region, making Malé an important friendly military presence to help safeguard Beijings access to oil from the Persian Gulf.
Any Chinese presence in the Maldives is a significant blow to India, which had troops stationed on the island until pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu called for them to leave this year.
While Muizzu has insisted he wants no foreign troops on his countrys soil, Chinas influence could still pose a security threat to India.
Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago and site of a major United States military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean leased from Britain
An airfield, buildings, and structures are seen on the artificial island built by China in Mischief Reef on October 25, 2022
China has another potential ally in Indias neighbour Sri Lanka. The countrys newly-appointed Marxist president is expected to seek maximum support from Beijing through foreign investment, technology and tourism, analysts have said.
Beijing has also invested heavily in projects of strategic value in the tropical paradise of the Seychelles, with its foreign ministry boasting of China-Seychelles friendship and saying the country is ready to work hand in hand with Seychelles to build a community with a shared future.
While publicly building ties with friendly, poorer countries around the Indo-Pacific, Beijing has also been working covertly to construct military bases across disputed tropical reef islands.
The South China Seas Spratly archipelago - which occupy one of the worlds most hotly contested regions - have been covered with military instillations as the PLA muscles in on its smaller neighbours.
Chinese President Xi Jinping waves as he arrives for a press event on October 23, 2022
The CCP has spent more than a decade transforming this remote series of atolls and reefs in the region into highly developed military bases.
The once-deserted paradise islands are now equipped with naval guns, anti-aircraft systems, radar arrays, attack ships and hangars capable of housing dozens of fighters.
The US revealed in 2022 that China had fully militarized at least three of nearly a dozen manmade islands it built in the region, using these islands for harrassment operations.
Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John C. Aquilino called the site the largest military build up since World War II by China.
The bases are part of a territory-grab by Xi over the entirety of the South China Sea within borders that Beijing refers to as the Nine Dash Line.
Chinas demarcation takes in about 90 per cent of the South China Sea to assert its claim to sovereignty over nearly all of the strategic waterway.
It has deployed hundreds of coast guard and militia vessels which it claims to be civilian fishermen to conduct patrols and intimidate rival claimants.
By controlling the sea, Xi aims to project power over neighbouring countries as well as fertile fishing grounds, and shipping lanes through which $5trillion-worth of goods pass each year.
Now his attentions could turn to the grabbing land in the Indian Ocean, potentially threatening UK and US security, conservative figures have warned on both sides of the pond.
The UK governments decision to give sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, whose ties with Beijing have been strengthening for decades, has been the subject of impassioned debate since it was announced.
Keir Starmer was accused of a shameful retreat yesterday over the strategic Chagos Islands
US President Joe Biden said he applauded the agreement which he said would secure the effective operation of the Diego Garcia military base.
But the decision has been roundly criticised by both senior Tories and Republicans, and The Times reported last night that Sir Keir renounced sovereignty of the Chagos Islands despite private warnings from the US.
The PM is now facing major pressure over what critics said was the surrender of the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former Tory party leader and leading China critic, told the Mail it would be madness to hand the islands over to a country with bilateral ties to Beijing.
Of course this deal benefits China, Luke Coffey, a former adviser to British Defense Secretary Liam Fox and senior Hudson Institute fellow told POLITICO, adding that the part of the deal which guarantees the 99 year use of the military base in Diego Garcia should not provide any comfort.
An aerial view of the air operations area and runway at the Diego Garcia base
Just look at the regrets and consequences resulting from the transfer of Hong Kong in 1997 under a similar arrangement, he argued.
Meanwhile Donald Trump supporter and Idaho Senator James Risch, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the move gives in to Chinese lawfare and yields to pressure from unaccountable international institutions like the International Court of Justice at the expense of US and UK strategic and military interests.
He added: The US and our allies must take a long term approach when it comes to making decisions that affect our strategic competition with China, or we will all lose.
Chagos Islands dispute has been raging for decades... with key strategic base at stake
By Harry Howard
When did Britain take control of the Chagos Islands?
In the 1700s, a small number of French colonists settled on the uninhabited Chagos Islands and developed coconut plantations there.
They imported slaves from Africa to work on the plantations.
And when French administration was replaced by the British at the end of the Napoleonic wars in the 19th century, the former slaves took over the coconut oil business and developed their own economy.
As the years progressed, several generations of Chagos islanders developed a common language and culture.
For administrative purposes, Britain grouped the Chagos Archipelago and several other islands together with Mauritius.
Following the eviction of the native population (Chagossians) in the 1960s, the only inhabitants are US and British military personnel
When and why did Britain forcibly remove the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands?
In 1965, when Mauritius began negotiating its independence, Britain paid £3million to keep Chagos and a few other islands out of the settlement.
A year later, Britain signed Diego Garcia over to the United States on a 50-year lease, for use as a military base.
It was considered a useful strategic site during the Cold War, when the sea movements of the Soviet Union were of key interest.
However, the 1,000 Chagos Islanders were never informed of the changes.
They were also not aware that once a US military base was established, their presence would not be tolerated.
In 1973, the British Government cleared the Chagos Archipelago of its inhabitants to make way for both the US base and its own installation.
Dogs, including pets, were rounded up and killed.
Some islanders who were sent to Mauritius ended up unemployed and living in slums.
The UK did grant citizenship to some Chagossians in 2002, and many of them came to live in the UK.
The USs 50-year lease was rolled over and is now set to expire in 2036.
Its base is strategically crucial as a staging post for ships and air power.
For how long has British sovereignty of the Chagos Islands been disputed?
Chagossians have fought for years to return to the land.
A handful of islanders repeatedly took the British government to court.
In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that residents who were forcibly removed could not return.
Mauritius has long maintained that its islands are its own.
In 2021, United Nations highest court has ruled that the UKs control of the territory is unlawful.
It said the Chagos Islands should be handed over to Mauritius.
