13 July, 2017
Xinhua said the base would facilitate military cooperation and joint exercises, part of China's efforts to "jointly safeguard the safety of global strategic channels with relevant parties". Tens of thousands of Chinese nationals are also employed on the continent, working as labourers and engineers on infrastructure projects - another reason Beijing wanted stable access, said Liu Naiya, an expert in West Asian and African affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Chinese maritime patrol aircraft stationed at airfields in Djibouti can also extend China's reach farther into the Indian Ocean.
The base is generally meant to "assist China's contribution to peace and stability both in Africa and worldwide", according to the Xinhua News Agency.
It is unclear when operations will begin at the base, but China is joining the U.S., France, and Japan, in keeping a military presence in the strategically important nation. "It's not a commercial resupply point", the Global Times said in an editorial.
Beijing officially describing the base as a logistics facility.
China says it will use its Djibouti base for missions such as peacekeeping and humanitarian aid in Africa and west Asia as well as joint military exercises and maintaining the security of global strategic waterways. In front, right across the tip of the Horn it has Yemen.
Djibouti, which has a population of less than 1 million people, is located on the Horn of Africa and while wars and unrest have dogged other nations in the region - such as Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Eritrea - Djibouti is seen as a model of stability.
"This particular piece of geography is very, very important to our strategic interests", U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said during a visit to the camp earlier this year, according to CNN.
China began construction of a base in Djibouti past year.
The US military has some 4,000 troops at Camp Lemonnier, a 100-acre base for which it signed a 10-year, $630 million lease in 2014, according to media reports.
Moreover, the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in NY has reported that the us military likely uses the Chabelley Airfield in the African nation to launch drone airstrikes against jihadists in Somalia and Yemen, noting in July 2016 that there were several construction projects underway at the facility.
