China is building a fleet of icebreakers to give itself the ability to operate in the Atlantic Ocean, with Russian assistance, Admiral Pierre Vandier, the chief of France’s navy, said last month. Le Figaro reported on his remarks yesterday, in light of China’s brazen military activity in the Taiwan Strait.
“At present, the Chinese are building a fleet of five ice breakers to create the possibility of switching their Pacific forces toward the Atlantic, with the help of the Russians,” he told the French parliament’s national-defense commission, according to the transcript of a July 27 hearing.
“My Norwegian counterpart, whom I met in March, did not talk to me about the Northern Russian fleet, based at Murmansk, but about the coming of the Chinese navy in the Atlantic Ocean. Soon, it will not be necessary to go to the South China Sea to find Chinese military forces,” he said.
The Figaro report notes that Vandier issued this warning as he requested more resources from French parliamentarians. Vandier said France should increase its military training efforts and that it should seek greater cooperation with its allies. He also made an extraordinary statement about the strategy that France, and its allies, should pursue: “Against the Chinese navy, we will win if we fight together.”
In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that China is working to build its first military base in the Atlantic, in Equatorial Guinea, a development that spurred the Biden administration to dispatch an emergency delegation to the country.