Japan is opening its first overseas army base in Djibouti, a small African state strategically located at the southern end of the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aden, to counter rising piracy in the region.
The 40-million-dollar base expected to be completed by early next year will strengthen international efforts to curb hijackings and vessel attacks by hordes of gunmen from the lawless Somalia.
The Djibouti base breaks new ground for Japan, which has had no standing army since World War II and cannot wage war. It however has armed forces -- the Japan Self-Defence Forces -- which were formed at the end of US occupation in 1952.
The Chinese are extending their facilities west and I'd expect the Chinese to eventually reach the Horn region. China has as much of a reason to want to protect their sea lines of communication through the Indian Ocean as Japan.
All of this is natural. And it is natural for other countries to worry about such normal activities. India can't afford to just shrug off China's base efforts by saying that it is normal for China to want to secure their sea lines of communication that run past India.
What works to secure China's SLOC also stands as a threat to India. That can't be helped. And only China's intentions--which can change overnight--distinguish a defensive string of pearls from an offensive string of pearls. This also drives India toward alliance with America. And American power nullifies any Chinese military efforts in the Indian Ocean.
In the end, China doesn't actually increase the security of their Indian Ocean SLOC because it only inspires an anti-Chinese coalition. But with the Japanese setting an example, the Chinese will surely follow. Even though it won't do Peking any good at all in the end. China is no Japan, and notwithstanding Japan's World War II legacy, China doing the exact same thing as Japan regarding an overseas base will be far more troubling to other countries.
UPDATE: China may think they are just bolstering their defenses, but from India's point of view, it looks an awful lot like a threat:
China has armed Pakistan with nuclear weapons and advanced ballistic missile technology, neutralizing India’s conventional superiority over a neighbor with which it has fought four wars. The top recipients of Chinese military aid are all India’s immediate neighbors in South Asia. China has built strong military-to-military ties with Burma, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka as part of what Indians see as a strategy to tie India down, Gulliver-like, in its region. China is developing a range of deep-water ports in the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean islands like Sri Lanka and the Seychelles, portending the projection of blue-water naval power in what India considers its home seas. Despite resolving land border disputes with its other neighbors, China has taken the opposite tack with India, pressing its claims to vast tracts of Indian territory through strident rhetoric, punitive administrative measures in institutions like the Asian Development Bank, and localized military skirmishes.
Even if President Obama seems to be abandoning our Indian alliance (leading the Indians to say they miss bush), China's actions will at least minimize the effects of Obama's neglect until some sense is restored in Wachington, DC.
