THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF CHINA’S NAVAL BASE IN DJIBOUTI TO PROTECT CHINA’S OVERSEAS GEO-ECONOMIC, GEOPOLITICAL, AND GEO-SECURITY INTERESTS (2015-2020)

Abstract

As China continues to grow as one of the emerging powers, it eventually leads China to have more expanding interests which are no longer limited by national territory. In that circumstance, Indian Ocean becomes increasingly significant to China for a number of reasons. For China to be able to protect its expanding interests overseas around the Indian Ocean, not only China has deployed its navy there, China also went as far as building its first overseas naval base in Djibouti, a country strategically located between crucial maritime choke points such as the Gulf of Aden (GoA) and Bab el-Mandeb. To come up with that decision, China has also gone through a shift of foreign policy and defence policy with military modernization effort that follows. That being said, this thesis attempts to analyze the development progress of China’s naval base in Djibouti in the period of 2015-2020 and how it supports China in protecting its overseas interests which are further classified into geo-economic, geopolitical, and geo-security interests. In addition to that, this thesis will also analyze the significance of Djibouti and its surrounding, which includes the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Bab el-Mandeb based on economic, political, and security dimension. To do so, this thesis will utilize qualitative method in the research based on both primary and secondary resources. This thesis finds that China’s naval base in Djibouti with its facilities, along with the on-going construction, demonstrates China’s increasing presence in the region through its operations and reported functions where its overseas interests are located and capability in protecting it.