According to Reuters on May 5, Tessie Lambourne, an opposition lawmaker in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, revealed that China plans to upgrade the airstrip and bridge on Kanton Island, a remote island in Kiribati.
Screenshot of the Reuters report
Located about 3,000 kilometers southwest of Hawaii, the island is a coral atoll island strategically located between Asia and the Americas. The airfield was used by the U.S. military during World War II.
"Apart from the feasibility study for the airport runway and bridge repair, the government has not disclosed costs and other details," Lambern said, saying opposition parties would seek more information from the government in due course. It is worth mentioning that Lambern was also the last "ambassador to Taiwan" before Kiribati and Taiwan "severed diplomatic relations."
Any major construction on Canton Island would provide China with a foothold "deep into the areas that have stood closely with the United States and its allies since World War II." The report also quoted an anonymous consultant who advises Pacific governments as saying that "the island will become a maritime aircraft carrier."
Kanton Island satellite image from the US media "the drive"
The US media "the drive" reported that during World War II, the US military used Canton Island as part of the "air ferry" transport route between Hawaii and the South Pacific. After the war, civil airlines used it as a transit point across the Pacific. Until the late 1960s, the United States also used the island for space and missile tracking. Today, Canton Island is only used for emergencies.
The Canton Island base currently has only one available airstrip, with an official length of 6,230 feet (about 1,898 meters), but the total length of the unmodified upgrade is nearly 8,000 feet (about 2,438 meters) from satellite maps. Once the existing runway is upgraded, it will be long enough to support the deployment of fighter jets. If the upgrade were extended to 8,000 feet, it would be enough to support the deployment of large transport aircraft, maritime patrol aircraft, and even bombers.
The red dot is Canton Island
Kiribati, a small country with a population of just 120,000 people, controls one of the world's largest exclusive economic zones, covering more than 3.5 million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean.
In 2003, Kiribati and the Taiwan authorities "established diplomatic relations", and China immediately announced that it would break diplomatic relations with them; in September 2019, after Kiribati and Taiwan "broke diplomatic relations", China and Kyrgyzstan resumed diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level.
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