Fretting over Chinese interest in the Atlantic is pointless, despite "Wen Jiabao’s much-discussed stopover in the Azore Islands, which could represent the prelude to a Chinese naval presence in the Atlantic. As the U.S. Air Force radically scales back its presence in the islands, Beijing could fill the void." At the risk of getting what we wish, this seems right:
But suppose Beijing does multiply its out-of-area commitments. Rather than fret about an extraregional China, I say bring it on.
The more burdens Beijing shoulders outside the Far East, the more it must disperse finite physical power—diluting the military assets it can apply to any given contingency without leaving commitments elsewhere uncovered. It will have less military might to spare for adventures like grabbing parts of Southeast Asian states’ exclusive economic zones or mounting a challenge to the forward American presence in the Western Pacific.
Worrying about the Chinese taking over our Azores Islands air base is not on the horizon, for no other reason than we aren't actually abandoning the base:
Department of Defense officials announced today that Lajes Field will transition from an air base wing to an air base group with a reduction of more than 400 military personnel and 500 family members by the end of fiscal year 2014.
We don't need as much at the base since there are no threats in the Atlantic these days. That's all this is.
Besides, Portugal is a NATO member and even if we did withdraw altogether, without pulling out of NATO, Portugal could not invite a non-NATO military into their territory.
It just makes no sense for China to deploy to the Atlantic, except for intelligence gathering purposes.
Seriously, by going to the Atlantic, China puts their forces into the middle of a kill sack where 40% of our fleet will still be based and where the navies and air forces of our NATO allies--95% of which would never deploy to Asia to fight China in a war--would be allowed to participate in a war by fighting the Chinese fleet close to home.
China would just be diluting their naval resources and putting them up against otherwise uninvolved navies and air forces.
China may fancy itself the Middle Kingdom, but this is ridiculous. A Chinese Atlantic squadron would lead a short but exciting life.
