Build-up resumes at suspected Chinese military base in UAE, leak says

One of the documents said Beijing’s efforts in the UAE were part of an ambitious campaign by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to create a global military network by 2030 that would include at least five overseas bases and 10 logistical Other planned installations in support of the site in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and throughout Africa.

Chinese military officials dubbed the initiative “Project 141,” according to the leaked material.

The Post has obtained previously unreported classified documents from a trove of intelligence material leaked onto the Discord messaging platform. The disclosures, which include details about Beijing’s aerial surveillance programs and plans to develop supersonic drones, come amid heightened tensions between the United States and China over their competition for global influence and resources.

Concerns among U.S. officials about China’s actions in the UAE have varied, with some viewing the developments as manageable while others see it as a significant threat that requires greater U.S. pressure. There is also a lack of consensus on whether the UAE has made a strategic decision to align itself deeply with China or maintain a balancing act that includes its longtime protector, the United States.

“There are people in the government who believe that the UAE has fundamentally decided to work with us. I don’t believe it,” said a senior administration official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity. A sensitive security issue.

The UAE leader “believes that China is very important now and is rising in the Middle East,” the person said.

The disclosures come as China seeks to expand its role as a global player – mediating rapprochement between the two countries old enemy of saudi arabia and iran 12-point peace plan last month and in February Settle the Ukraine WarThe Middle East has become a particular focus of U.S.-China rivalry as Beijing strikes trade deals and forges closer political ties in the formerly U.S.-dominated region.

A UAE representative suggested that the FBI arrested leak suspectdeclined to answer questions about the intelligence documents, saying “our policy is not to comment on material that is allegedly obtained criminally and taken out of context.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said the U.S. was wrong to be concerned about Chinese military installations overseas.

“As a principle, China conducts normal law enforcement and security cooperation with other countries on the basis of equality and mutual benefit,” Liu said.

“The United States has more than 800 military bases overseas, which has attracted the attention of many countries in the world. It has no right to criticize other countries,” he added.

U.S. officials have insisted they will not allow Chinese bases to operate in the UAE, saying such a facility would jeopardize sensitive U.S. military activities in the Middle East.

“The UAE is a close partner and we regularly engage with its senior leadership on many regional and global matters,” another senior government official said. “There is currently no indication” that the Chinese base will be completed without a significant increase in activity, the person said.

U.S. officials are particularly concerned about Khalifa Port, about 50 miles north of the capital, where a Chinese shipping group operates. In December 2021, the UAE announced it was halting Chinese construction at the facility after U.S. officials argued that Beijing intended to use it for military purposes.

“We stopped building these facilities,” Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the UAE leader, said at a Washington think tank event as the country faced public pressure to speak to the Wall Street Journal article Describe China’s activities in detail.

But a year later, a leaked U.S. intelligence document said the PLA facility was “probably connected to municipal power and water supplies” and that “wall enclosures were completed for PLA logistics depots.” The second document warned that “PLA facilities” were a “major part” of Beijing’s plan to establish a military base in the UAE.

The newfound activity there has led some U.S. officials to believe that the UAE is not dealing “directly” with Washington.

“I don’t think they went to the Chinese and said, ‘It’s over, we’re not going to do this,'” the first administration official said.

The Biden administration is also concerned about observing PLA personnel at two UAE military bases in the interior of the country, where Arab allies operate drones and ballistic missile defense systems, said officials familiar with the matter.

In addition, U.S. officials believe that the PLA is involved in building and expanding airstrips along the coast from Abu Dhabi, although some in the administration consider the presence of PLA personnel on Chinese construction sites not per se a concern, noting that they are present in places where there are no military outposts Chinese construction sites in other countries.

Camille Lance of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said China’s expanding foothold in the world’s ports helps it gather intelligence on U.S. military operations and activities in those regions. Under a Chinese law passed in 2017, even Chinese commercial companies are obliged to share information with the military if asked to. “It’s hard to know if that’s going to happen, but it’s a concern,” she said.

Like other experts interviewed for this story, Lance spoke in general terms and had not seen the leaked documents.

Jacqueline Deal, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, said China’s establishment of bases and related facilities in the UAE would complicate the United States’ ability to operate. One of the largest U.S. bases in the Middle East, Al Dhafra Air Base, is about 50 miles from Khalifa Port.

“If we have troops in the area and we’re trying to mobilize or use them, they’ll have a base from which to observe and potentially intervene,” she said. “And they’re going to have a lot more influence over local government.”

Khalifa Port’s terminals are part of a network of more than 100 strategic commercial ports and terminals invested by China around the world. In addition to the UAE, U.S. officials have identified Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, and Angola as locations where Chinese ports may have dual uses, potentially allowing Beijing to “both interfere with U.S. military operations and support offensive operations against the U.S., ’” according to a 2020 Pentagon report to Congress.

In some parts of the world, such as Europe, port facilities are unlikely to be converted to military use because the host country will never agree. But China’s Maritime Silk Road, the network as Beijing calls it, offers other advantages.

Chinese stakes in at least a dozen European ports give Beijing some degree of control over supply routes, which would make it difficult for Europe to impose tough sanctions on China if necessary, and could allow Beijing to interrupt or divert Western supplies in the event of It’s a confrontation, says Francesca Ghiretti of the Mercator China Institute, a German think tank.

U.S. officials see China’s expanding economic ties as an opportunity to establish a military foothold in new regions — though they acknowledge Washington’s network of global bases is far more extensive and powerful.

Currently, Djibouti is the only overseas location where China has a recognized base, officially inaugurated by the People’s Liberation Army Navy in 2017. According to the document, the PLA was “almost certainly nearing completion of the antenna operations building at Doraleh” in February for satellite espionage operations in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

In June last year, The Washington Post reported that China was advancing a secretive plan to A naval base in Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. Both countries deny it, and Cambodian officials say China is merely funding base upgrades and helping train Cambodians to repair ships. But a Chinese official in Beijing confirmed to The Washington Post that “parts of the base” would be used by “the Chinese military.” This was reinforced by one of the classified documents, which said part of the facility would be designated as a “division-level” military base.

Elsewhere in the world, a Chinese team is scheduled to visit Equatorial Guinea and Gabon in February to help prepare for a joint training center and train Equatorial Guinean personnel on communications equipment, the leaked documents show.

But most of these projects have not raised the same alarm in Washington as China’s activities in the UAE, because the host countries are not as close to the United States.Since 2012, the UAE has been The third largest buyer American weapons in the world. Its armed forces have fought alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The country also hosted 5,000 US military personnel in al-Dhafra and US warships in the deep-water port of Jebel Ali.

Riad Kahwaji, director of Dubai-based Inegma security consultancy, said the United Arab Emirates was beginning to envision an era in which China could rival or even surpass the United States as a military power. “The Chinese have successfully replaced you in everything else, so why not be safe?” he said.

Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political analyst, said the UAE began exploring other security partners after what they believed was a slow U.S. response to a missile attack on Abu Dhabi by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The UAE is part of a Saudi-backed coalition that has waged intense airstrikes against Houthi militants for years.

But two senior officials said they doubted the UAE would go too far in jeopardizing its security relationship with the United States, even if it prefers China’s agnostic stance on human rights and democracy.

Still, the UAE’s relationship with China has strained a planned $23 billion sale of U.S. F-35 fighter jets, Reaper drones and other U.S. weapons, while prompting speculation within the Biden administration about whether to prioritize keeping its U.S. assets. Traditional partnerships in the Middle East or against the rise of China.

“There are those who argue that this is a very tragic time in the Middle East and that the most important element in our diplomacy right now has to be a degree of patience,” said a senior U.S. official. “But there is definitely an argument.”