Name: U.S., China and the Showdown Over an Indian Ocean Military Base | WSJ Coordinates
Uploaded: 2025-04-28T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 7 min 6 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

The tiny island of Diego Garcia is home to a little-known but strategically important U.S.-UK military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

It allows the U.S. to project power in the Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.

Adverbs of manner

It's currently being used to carry out strikes against the Houthis in Yemen and telegraph a warning to Iran over its nuclear program.

But as wars rage and China seeks to gain influence in the region, the base's future is up in the air.

Essential to U.S. security but under threat of Chinese influence, this is Diego Garcia.

In just the past few weeks, the base has hosted a third of the U.S.'s B-2 bomber fleet, a guided missile destroyer with advanced air defenses, and huge aircraft capable of transporting heavy weapons.

But the British government is planning to cede sovereignty of Diego Garcia and the islands around it to the China-friendly nation of Mauritius, and then lease back the base.

The deal between Britain and Mauritius is one the Biden administration supported and which the Trump administration has sought to strengthen.

We're talking to the prime minister about it, and we'll see how that turns out.

But some current and former officials say that blessing the deal is a huge mistake and warn that Beijing could capitalize on the transfer.

If Mauritius Islands turns to China and says, you want one of these other islands, there's 60 of them, to build a military base?

Diego Garcia is the largest of the Chagos Islands.

They used to be controlled by France, which administered them from Mauritius.

Then in 1814, France ceded both the Chagos and Mauritius to the Brits.

And over a century later, in the midst of the Cold War, the U.K. and the U.S. agreed on the need for a military base in the Indian Ocean.

Around that time, Britain granted Mauritius independence and paid £3 million to detach and keep the Chagos Islands.

Then it forcibly removed roughly 1,000 people living there.

In the 1970s, the U.S. military began building the base, which would become known as the last link in the long logistics chain.

For decades, Diego Garcia has been part of what the Pentagon calls the tip of the spear, meaning it's on the front lines of conflicts.

Bombers staged there are within range of key potential targets, but are far enough away from adversaries that they're considered safe.

And the base has the ability to accommodate almost everything in the U.S. arsenal, from nuclear submarines to giant transport planes.

To give you a sense of its logistical importance, after 9-11, the U.S. was able to ship hundreds of tanks, trucks, and containers to the island before moving them to Afghanistan by air.

By transporting just one striker unit that way, instead of flying it directly from the United States, the Department of Defense estimated that it saved 40 days and more than $100 million, according to a defense official.

Diego Garcia is also home to a Space Force tracking station, which allows the U.S. to communicate with satellites in the remote region.

And in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan, Diego Garcia would be critical, especially if Beijing attacked U.S. facilities and allies in the Pacific.

Now after more than half a century of military operations, the British government is planning to give up sovereignty of the islands.

China knows how important this military base is to the security of the world.

Republican Senator John Kennedy has been one of the most vocal critics of the U.K. Mauritius deal.

President Trump and Secretary Rubio need to pick up the phone and call Prime Minister Stormer in the United Kingdom and say to the Prime Minister, Mr. Prime Minister, with all due respect, stop dipping into your ketamine stash.

After the U.K. indicated that it had President Trump's approval to move forward with the deal, Kennedy sat down with us in his Senate office.

I was hoping that President Trump was going to stop this.

I think President Trump's getting very bad advice.

I mean, this thing is, to me, it's stone cold stupid.

The U.K. did say that it would wait for President Trump to weigh in, but the country has come under pressure to give up its claim to the islands, which are seen as a legacy of British colonialism.

In 2019, the United Nations International Court of Justice issued a non-binding ruling stating that the Chagos Islands had been unlawfully detached from Mauritius.

And in 2024, the U.K. struck a preliminary deal to officially transfer the islands to the African nation.

Supporters of the deal say that without the transfer, China would have leeway to try and neutralize the base because it would be in legal limbo.

Without legal certainty, the base cannot operate in practical terms as it should.

But critics argue that the International Court of Justice doesn't have jurisdiction over the matter.

It's just not a base we have any obligation to give up or put in jeopardy.

And that's really what we're talking about.

It's not a threat from Mauritius against the U.S. and the U.K., it's the threat from China.

Instead of trying to spike the deal, two White House officials told me that the administration rigorously reviewed it and then made recommendations to strengthen it.

The final details are still being negotiated, but the gist is that Mauritius would have sovereignty over the islands and the U.K. and U.S. would retain access to the base with an initial 99-year lease for billions of dollars.

The prime minister of Mauritius has told reporters that he won't allow China to take the Chagos Islands, but the country's close ties with Beijing are a key concern.

Mauritius signed a free trade agreement with China in 2021, and China accounts for its largest share of imports.

Already China is trying to be Mauritius' best friend.

Senator Kennedy has blamed Trump's national security adviser, Mike Waltz, for endorsing the deal.

We got nothing in return and we put this base in jeopardy.

And I've made my position very unclear to Mike Waltz.

I mean, yeah, we got a lease, Mike told me.

Waltz declined to comment, but the two White House officials told me they have extreme confidence that operations will continue at the base if the U.S.'s security provisions are included in the final agreement.

But as conflicts in the Middle East continue to escalate and U.S. focus turns increasingly toward China, concerns over the future of this tiny but important base remain.

It's not that Diego Garcia is in danger the day after the treaty is ratified, but the direction ahead is very, very worrying.