Exclusive—How China’s Military is Quietly Gaining Control of the Pacific

China has quietly extended its military reach far across the Pacific by building dozens of ports, airports, and communications projects at key points in a vast region that could shut out the United States and its allies in the event of war, a new report says.

The projects appeared civilian in nature but were in reality “strategic nodes” stretching about 3,000 miles, from Papua New Guinea immediately north of U.S. ally Australia, to Samoa, which lies about 40 miles away from the U.S. territory of American Samoa in Polynesia, according to the new study made available exclusively to Newsweek. The remote, scattered islands of the Pacific were once crucial to American warfighting strategy in World War II, and they could play a role in the next global conflict, too.

The growing logistics network in the South Pacific—built mostly by Chinese state-owned companies with ties to its defense sector—was being overlooked even as Beijing’s rivalry with the U.S. deepened and as China’s overseas base ambitions elsewhere drew attention, said Domingo I-Kwei Yang, an assistant research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), an institution funded by the government of self-ruled Taiwan, which China has threatened to invade.

“The question is not whether, but when, China will complete a civil-military logistics system in the Pacific,” Yang said in China’s Dual-Use Infrastructure in the Pacific, a study published on Monday as part of the Coastwatchers 2.0 Project, a collaboration between the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and Project Sinopsis, a research center in Prague in the Czech Republic.

The strategic network began to grow about two decades ago and today is embedded in China’s 2013 “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), a global infrastructure plan that is purposefully “dual use”—both civilian and military—in nature, said Yang in an interview.

“China’s BRI is not merely about infrastructure but a vehicle for strategic influence” with the dual-use infrastructure it constructs “a force multiplier,” Yang wrote. The network could eventually make it difficult for the U.S. and its allies to operate across large swathes of the Pacific and make it easier for China to invade Taiwan, which the Communist Party considers to be part of Chinese territory.

“Beijing aims to reshape regional power dynamics and challenge U.S.-led alliances,” compelling traditional U.S. allies in the region—Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand—”to reconsider their security partnerships with the U.S., bandwagon with Beijing, and shift the regional power balance in China’s favor.”

The nodes were also part of an even more ambitious geostrategic plan known as Southern Link, with designs all the way to South America, thus further isolating the United States to the north, the report said. Last year, China opened a megaport built and operated by state-owned shipping giant COSCO at Chancay in Peru, a logistics node on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Asked about its goals in the Pacific, a representative of the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., told Newsweek: “To build a better future with its neighbors, China will hold high the banner of a community with a shared future for mankind and take the building of a peaceful, tranquil, prosperous, beautiful and friendly as its common vision.”

“It will uphold the Asian values of peace, cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, use high-quality Belt and Road cooperation as the main platform, and pursue the Asian security model that features sharing weal and woe, seeking common ground while shelving differences, and prioritizing dialogue and consultation,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in an email.

A State Department spokesperson said, “Beijing uses its Belt and Road Initiative to advance its political agenda abroad.”

“The U.S. government aims to offer credible alternatives that leverage public and private financing in priority areas that make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” the spokesperson said. These included “traceable supply chains, trusted information and communications technology networks, connective transportation infrastructure such as rails and ports, and leveling the playing field in commercial deals that will help U.S. firms compete in key international markets.”

Asked how BRI projects impacted security for Taiwan, the spokesperson said, “The United States supports peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. China’s aggressive military activities and rhetoric toward Taiwan exacerbate tensions and put the region’s security and the world’s prosperity at risk. In the face of China’s intimidation tactics and destabilizing behavior, the United States’ enduring commitment to our allies and partners, including Taiwan, continues.”

In a series of firsts starting in mid-2024 that startled Pacific nations, China fired a ballistic missile from its southern island province of Hainan that splashed down in the Pacific Ocean in the economic waters of Kiribati, a nation of low-lying atolls; carried out live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia that forced the diversion of airborne commercial flights; and sent PLA Navy ships to circumnavigate Australia.

China’s Defense Ministry said that the naval exercises took place far from Australia, that China’s live-fire training were conducted with repeated safety notices and that all China’s actions were entirely in accordance with international law.

String of Pacific Pearls

Yang’s research identified 39 active strategic nodes, with an additional review by Newsweek finding 11 more, bringing the total to at least 50. The investment was about $3.55 billion, according to Newsweek research—a mixture of direct and indirect grants and loans from the Chinese state and its banks, regional development banks and the states themselves.

The nodes are in 11 Pacific Island countries, about two-thirds of the 18 members of the regional Pacific Islands Forum. Among the projects identified by Newsweek were 26 for construction at airports. At least 12 of the airports could now accommodate China’s biggest military transporter, the Y-20, Yang said.

Some of the companies carrying out the projects are under U.S. sanctions, such as China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and Huawei Technologies.

CCCC helped build China’s controversial island bases in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims, although neighbouring countries dispute that.

Also prominent were China Railway Engineering Corporation, China Overseas Engineering Group and China Civil Engineering Construction Corp—all grew out of China’s Ministry of Railways—as well as China Harbor Engineering Company, a CCCC subsidiary, and Sinohydro Corporation, a subsidiary of Power Construction Corporation of China.

Little Pushback

A key venue was Papua New Guinea, population 12 million, with 21 projects such as at Momote Airport, which serves Manus Island and is near a deep-water port used by U.S. ships. That gave China a potential “foothold” to monitor and disrupt U.S. operations, intercepting joint missions between the U.S. and regional partners, Yang said.

The prime minister’s office in Port Moresby did not respond to Newsweek’s request for comment.

There had been little pushback from regional powers such as Australia and New Zealand, said Cleo Paskal, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., who testified to Congress this year on U.S. national interests in the Pacific. That could have consequences if there were a crisis over Taiwan,” she said.

“There is going to be very little or no space for free countries to operate,” Paskal told Newsweek, adding that Chinese naval capabilities—now the largest in the world by hull count—were much greater than those of U.S. allies. Australia’s Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Undercover Infrastructure

Vanuatu, site of a major U.S. naval base in the Pacific War, was also a vital venue for China’s “undercover infrastructures,” with the state-owned Shanghai Construction Group extending a wharf in Luganville port by nearly 1,200 feet, allowing it to accommodate large cargo vessels—as well as Chinese warships, Yang wrote.

“Given Luganville’s strategic past as one of the largest U.S. naval bases in the Pacific during World War II, China appears to be laying the groundwork for a future military foothold—only the host country had to pay for it,” Yang wrote. The port project was funded by a $97 million loan from China’s state-owned Exim Bank, public records showed.

Underlining China’s interest, in October 2024 two People’s Liberation Army Navy warships arrived in Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, in the first known deployment to the South Pacific of the Type 055 and Type 052D large guided-missile destroyers.

In 2008, Vanuatu had been the recipient of a project by Huawei to connect Port Vila’s Vanuatu government agencies via a fiberoptic network. The project and upgrades spanned 13 years.

“Notably, many Huawei staff maintain deep links with China’s military and intelligence sectors, raising concerns about potential security risks,” Yang said. Huawei did not respond to Newsweek’s request for comment.

Samoa, right by American Samoa, has also received Chinese airport, seaport and information technology projects. China had very little trade with Samoa, Yang said, raising questions about Beijing’s interest.

The governments of Samoa and Vanuatu did not respond to requests for comment.

The Australian government did not comment on the record about the intent of the BRI.

But via email, an Australian government spokesperson said, “Australia’s position on the Belt and Road Initiative is that we engage on a case-by-case basis with infrastructure projects that are transparent and open, uphold robust standards, meet genuine need, and avoid unsustainable debt burdens for recipient countries.”

“China is an important trading partner for many Pacific Island countries, as it is for Australia. We respect the right of Pacific nations to make sovereign decisions about their engagement with other countries,” the spokesperson said.

Yang’s study did not include other infrastructure such as roads and bridges, but he highlighted the importance of fisheries, equipped with new piers, that Chinese companies such as Fujian Zhonghong Fishery were also developing in the Pacific, for example in Daru in Papua New Guinea, opposite Australia. Daru lies atop the Torres Strait, a key maritime choke point controlling commercial and energy shipping routes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Fisheries opened the door to China’s extensive networks of fishing and maritime militias, according to Yang. “China is likely to extend its use of maritime militias, armed and subsidized civilian groups, from the East and South China Seas to the Torres Strait. The Daru Island fishery park could, therefore, act as a cover for China’s gray-zone aggression in the region.”

References

Domingo I-Kwei Yang. “China’s Dual-Use Infrastructure in the Pacific.” Sinopsis, April 14, 2025. https://sinopsis.cz/en/chinas-dual-use-infrastructure-in-the-pacific/.