China is quite keen on projecting its hard power globally. Its military base expansion beyond its contested borders make that very clear. However, while Beijing carries on this charade for the world, at home, it is systematically oppressing its own citizens.
The Dragon’s Global Reach: Military Expansion Through Belt and Road
The People’s Liberation Army’s overseas footprint has expanded swiftly since 2017, when China established its first official military base in Djibouti. This facility, operating under the euphemism of a “support base,” houses mechanised infantry with combat vehicles, helicopters, and unmanned aerial systems. Far from being merely logistical, the base represents China’s intent to project military power far beyond its traditional sphere.
Beijing’s military ambitions extend well beyond Djibouti. According to reports, China is pursuing military facilities in an extensive list of countries including Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the UAE, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania, Namibia, and the Solomon Islands. The recently operational Ream Naval Base in Cambodia exemplifies this strategy, providing Chinese forces with rotational deployment capabilities in Southeast Asia.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has emerged as the primary vehicle for this military expansion. Wearing the garb of economic development, the porject has given China access to 94 ports worldwide as of 2020, creating what analysts describe as “dual-use installations” ostensibly commercial but capable of supporting military operations. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), centrepiece of the BRI, has enabled Chinese military training centres in Pakistan while facilitating submarine maintenance facilities.
This expansion follows Beijing’s acknowledged “Project 141,” which is looking to establish at least five overseas bases and ten logistical support sites by 2030. The strategy directly challenges India’s maritime security, creating what New Delhi perceives as an encirclement through China’s “string of pearls” a network of military and naval facilities stretching from the South China Sea to the Horn of Africa.
The Brutal Reality: Systematic Oppression at Home
Whilst China’s military ventures abroad garner international attention, the regime’s domestic repression represents one of the gravest human rights catastrophes of our time. The systematic persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang stands as the clearest manifestation of Beijing’s authoritarian brutality.
Since 2017, authorities in China have detained anywhere between 800,000 to 2 million Uyghurs in what have been euphemistically termed “vocational education and training centres” by Beijing. That is a failed rebranding for internment camps that are now believed to be the largest arbitrary detention of ethnic minorities since World War II. The camps are understood to be horrifying places that subject inmates to torture, forced labour, sexual abuse, and population control measures including forced sterilisation and coercive abortions.
The camps represent just one facet of Beijing’s comprehensive assault on Uyghur identity. Detainees face systematic dehumanisation, forced renunciation of religious beliefs, and compulsory allegiance to the Communist Party. Women suffer organised rape and sexual violence, whilst children are separated from families and placed in state-run indoctrination facilities. The entire population endures Orwellian surveillance, mass data collection, and cultural eradication policies designed to eliminate Uyghur identity entirely.
Hong Kong’s democratic movement has faced similar crushing repression. The 2020 National Security Law effectively criminalised all forms of political opposition, leading to the arrest of hundreds of pro-democracy activists. In November 2024, 45 democracy advocates received harsh prison sentences of up to ten years merely for organising primary elections. The law’s sweeping definitions of terrorism, subversion, and collusion with foreign powers have silenced civil society and eliminated press freedom.
Power Projection Built on Oppression
China claims its growing overseas military presence is simply a response to the need to protect its investments, its citizens abroad, and vital sea lanes. Yet, at the same time, the regime seems unable to trust its own people without blanketing them in surveillance and building vast systems of coercion. That is the contradiction at the core of Beijing’s strategy: confidence abroad built on insecurity at home.
The contradiction plays out internationally too. Beijing insists it is a defender of sovereignty and non-interference, yet it has pursued Uyghurs well beyond China’s borders. Exiles in Turkey, Kazakhstan and elsewhere report constant surveillance and harassment, with family members in Xinjiang used as hostages for compliance. In some cases, Chinese operatives have even run covert detention sites overseas, like the so-called “black site” identified in Dubai.
India’s Strategic Challenge
For India, this contradiction has tangible consequences. China’s expanding naval presence in the Indian Ocean, coupled with its entrenched partnership with Pakistan, represents a direct threat to Indian security. Even the recent border confidence-building measures cannot erase the reality that New Delhi views Beijing as a strategic rival, and one whose actions abroad are inseparable from the repression it practices at home.
India’s response has been to deepen alignments with like-minded partners. Through the Quad with the United States, Japan and Australia, and more recently via the India-US COMPACT agreement, New Delhi has sought to expand its access to advanced defence technology, conduct more frequent joint exercises, and build a counterweight to China’s presence in the region.
A Warning for Democracies
What ties these strands together is the nature of the Chinese state. The same government that silences dissent in Hong Kong, detains millions in Xinjiang, and intimidates diaspora communities also seeks to project power into the Indian Ocean and beyond. A regime willing to brutalise its own citizens is unlikely to respect the sovereignty of others.
That is why India, and democracies more broadly, cannot treat China’s domestic repression and its external assertiveness as separate issues. They are two faces of the same authoritarian system. The PLA’s bases and port access agreements are not just military moves; they are expressions of a political order that rejects transparency, accountability and human rights.
The lesson is sobering. The world should judge Beijing’s rise not by the scale of its warships or the reach of its missiles, but by the way it treats its people. A power built on coercion at home cannot be trusted to play by the rules abroad. Recognising that reality is the first step in shaping a collective response.
(Ashu Mann is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies. He was awarded the Vice Chief of the Army Staff Commendation card on Army Day 2025. He is pursuing a PhD from Amity University, Noida, in Defence and Strategic Studies. His research focuses include the India-China territorial dispute, great power rivalry, and Chinese foreign policy.)
