Vanuatu and China on Tuesday denied a media report that Beijing wanted to establish a permanent military presence in the Pacific island nation. Australia's Fairfax Media, citing unnamed sources, earlier on Tuesday reported that preliminary discussions to locate a full military base on Vanuatu had been held. "No one in the Vanuatu government has ever talked about a Chinese military base in Vanuatu of any sort," Regenvanu told the Australian Broadcasting Corp."We are a non-aligned country. We are not interested in militarisation, we are just not interested in any sort of military base in our country." China opened its first overseas military base in August 2017 in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa.

Source: dna April 10, 2018 09:28 UTC