How the West should respond to China’s search for foreign outposts

THE UNITED STATES maintains hundreds of military bases in at least 45 countries. Britain runs plenty of outposts overseas. French forces are stationed from Ivory Coast to New Caledonia. Even tiny Singapore has training camps abroad. But five years after it opened—to the alarm of Western officials—China’s naval base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, remains its only military bastion beyond its borders.

China wants to change that. Over the past two decades it has amassed more ships than America’s navy has in total. Lately it has increased efforts to find foreign berths for them. It is thought to have approached at least five potential host countries. A deal with the Solomon Islands, signed in April, has raised fears that China may establish a military foothold there. And it has deepened concerns that, one day, China will challenge American naval dominance in the Pacific.