China says no truth in reports of overseas military bases, submarine docking in SL routine
Saturday, 29 November 2014 00:00
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Beijing: China has dismissed Indian media reports of establishing naval bases in the Indian Ocean countries including Sri Lanka and asserted that currently there is no military base abroad for Chinese military.
Senior Colonel Geng Yansheng, spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense of China at the media briefing said the Indian media reports that said China is extending its military strength to Indian Ocean region after two occurrences of a Chinese submarine docking in Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port, are not accurate.
The military spokesman explained that, a Chinese naval submarine together with the Chinese naval escort taskforce went to the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast to perform escort missions and on its way to and back from the mission area, the submarine made technical docking in Sri Lanka twice.
“It is a quite common practice for submarines of world navies to dock at certain ports and conduct replenishment,” Senior Colonel Geng Yansheng said.
Referring to a report in Namibian newspaper that said Walvis Bay in Namibia is one of the 18 military bases China plans to build, the spokesman said the report was ‘utterly groundless’.
He said their investigations found that the report cited an unofficial commentary published on the Internet about two years ago.
“The report exaggerated and distorted the content of the commentary. Therefore, the report is utterly groundless,” the spokesman said.
Citing Chinese media reports, The Namibian said Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port is one of China’s planned naval bases in the northern Indian Ocean in addition to bases in Pakistan and Myanmar.
Clarifying the China’s policy toward overseas military base, the spokesman said currently there is no military base abroad for Chinese military.
