New American military base in Pacific

New American military base in Pacific would show how US-China cold war is heating up fast

21 Oct, 2020 13:35

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Aerial view looking down the runway of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe, Hawaii, USA ©  Getty Images / NNehring

 

By Tom Fowdy, a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.

The tiny state of Palau has invited the US to build a military base on its territory. It’s a sign of how the Pacific is becoming strategically vital as countries choose to align with either Washington or Beijing.

Few people in the west are likely to have heard of a nation called Palau, an archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean. Located close to Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, it boasts a population of only 17,000 people, less than the average small town.

Do not let its size obscure its significance, though. For all these islands may seem irrelevant in the world of contemporary politics, they are in fact situated right at the heart of one of the world’s emerging geopolitical struggles, the cold war between the United States and China.

In the midst of growing tensions between Washington and Beijing, Palau could not be a more strategically important location. The Pacific Ocean at large has already become the stage for a military chess game between the two countries, as the US seeks to encircle China’s periphery and Beijing aims for military parity in its own backyard.

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