Wsparcie sił pokojowych czy zamorska ekspansja? Chińska baza morska w Rogu Afryki
Support for peacekeepers or overseas expansion? Chinese naval base in the Horn of Africa

Summary/Abstract: During the last two decades the People’s Republic of China has been extensively developing its naval forces. The fleet characteristic for the Mao Zedong era – which consists of very numerous, but de facto deprived of serious combat capabilities, small ships and craft, has definitely become a thing of the past, as well as the strategic concept that the navy will lead a „people war” on coastal waters. Currently, the Middle Kingdom is evidently building an „anti-access fleet” whose main task is to deprive the potential opponent (US Navy is being deployed) of the possibility of effective operation in the northwestern part of the Pacific (primarily within the so-called „first chain of islands” from the northern Borneo, through Taiwan and Okinawa, to the southern island of Japanese „mainland”, or Kyushu). In addition to expanding its naval forces, Beijing is not limited to the waters adjacent to the Chinese coasts. In January 2009, Beijing, making great use of the pretext of threats posed to Chinese ships and sailors by Somali pirates, began maintaining a team of ships in the western Indian Ocean. The Middle Kingdom decided to take a substantially different course: in January 2016 it was announced that China would build an „installation of logistic support” in Djibouti. The paper discusses a wide spectrum of consequences of this decision.

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