Secretive military base is crucial to US power in Indian Ocean and beyond but may soon be encircled by Chinese commercial interests
by Bertil Lintner
An aerial view of America's leased Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean. Photo: Facebook
Last October, the United Kingdom and Mauritius reached an agreement that the British Indian Ocean Territory would be returned to Mauritius, to which it once belonged.
A month later, the newly-elected Mauritius government under Navin Ramgoolam ordered a review of the agreement, which he described as a “sellout” because it did not benefit his nation enough in terms of compensation for years of colonial rule and the forced expulsion of the archipelago’s original inhabitants.
That occurred when the Chagos Archipelago’s seven atolls separated from Mauritius in 1965, and the largest of them, Diego Garcia, was leased to the United States to house a major, highly secretive military base in the Indian Ocean.
But the handover is bound to happen, and there is already talk about turning the sun-drenched archipelago into a tourist paradise akin to its closest island neighbor, the Maldives, situated some 500 kilometers away.
But therein lies the geostrategic problem. Britain has pledged to provide Mauritius with financial support to develop the islands, including a partnership to build badly needed infrastructure.
However, Mauritius is a sovereign country and it is hard to imagine that China will not seek to finance its own projects on the archipelago – and not just because Beijing is interested in helping to turn the islands into an attractive destination for globetrotting Chinese tourists.
The Maldives is strategically important to China because it lies along the sea routes through which its imported oil from the Persian Gulf travels.