All eyes are now on China’s aggression in the South China Sea, but China’s naval and potentially military expansion is far broader.

China’s “string of pearls” strategy is well known: China seeks to protect its sea lanes and energy supply with a series of naval bases stretched through the Indian Ocean. There is, for example, China’s development of the Pakistani port of Gwadar, its work to upgrade the port of Chittagong in Bangladesh, its outreach to Sri Lanka, rumors of Chinese work on the Marao Atoll in the Maldives, and Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Perhaps now, thanks in part to the normalization that has accompanied the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the so-called Iran nuclear deal, China is on the verge of adding one more pearl. The Islamic Republic News Agency