“When you’re far from home, you want a place to repair if something breaks, you want a place where you can ship parts to, you want a place to get water, food, fuel and everything else it takes to sustain, you want a place to rearm—that is hugely significant,” said Kevin Donegan, who led the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet from 2015 to 2017 and is now a distinguished senior fellow on national security at the Middle East Institute, in Washington, D.C.
“It is what we built in our navy over the last 250 years. They are slowly building that up,” he said.
Chinese-run port terminals have commercial value, but are also “tri-use,” said Mr. Donegan, meaning they can be used not only for logistics support but also intelligence gathering and as future potential basing options.