Ghost of a flea

The unannounced construction of the new base, a few kilometres from an older one at Yulin, had long been known about. Yet the pictures attracted considerable media attention. To some, the large-scale facility suggested a menacing ambition. Sanya is on the southern coast of Hainan island and faces the South China Sea, whose waters are contested by several countries, China among them. The sea would be the conduit for any projection of Chinese naval power into South-East Asia and (as officials in Delhi fear) the Indian Ocean, as well as into the Pacific.

The obsession with military secrecy sits oddly with China’s efforts to turn Hainan, which is about the size of Sri Lanka and sits on China’s southernmost fringes, into an international tourism hotspot. Officials proudly describe the island as China’s Hawaii. From the beach, this correspondent clocked a couple of Luyang-class destroyers and a missile frigate. One of the destroyers emerged from the base and steamed cheerfully up and down in front of the hotels.