https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U70qK7JVdaY

China does not have its own expeditionary mobile base but is planning to build one, according to the February edition of Chinese military publication Ordnance Industry Science Technology.USS Miguel Keith will allow America to set up a sea base almost anywhere in the world.The commissioning of a United States “floating naval base” will extend the military competition between the US and China into areas where China controls ports, according to defence experts.However, as the base is vulnerable to attack, it will primarily be used in low-intensity conflict and non-war missions, they said.The assessment came after the USS Miguel Keith, a US$525 million, 785-foot expeditionary mobile base, was commissioned into active service with the US Navy on May 8. Its first destination will be Saipan in the US commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Pentagon said.The vessel, which can carry about 100 sailors and 44 civilians, has a range of more than 9,500 nautical miles and a top speed of 15 knots. Its flight deck is big enough to accommodate the navy’s largest helicopters, the MH-53, and Marine Corps F-35B jets.The Miguel Keith is a semi-submersible, flexible modular platform that provides the navy with the capability to perform large-scale logistics movements such as the transfer of vehicles and equipment from sea to shore.Such bases can also be used for other military operations, such as warfare, counter-piracy and humanitarian support, and can be used as a floating port in the absence of a land facility.Timothy Heath, a security expert from the Rand think tank in the US, said the Miguel Keith would improve the operational flexibility and survivability of America’s naval and amphibious forces.The Miguel Keith, is the US Navys’ third floating base, and its commissioning comes at a time of rising tensions between the US and China.At a commissioning ceremony at US Naval Air Station North Island, Admiral Craig Faller of the US Southern Command said the Miguel Keith could go all over the world in its lifetime, to places such as the Caribbean, South China Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.Its crew would be on the front line of global conflict against threats to the United States, particularly China, he said.“The Chinese Communist Party, with its insidious and corrupt influence, seeks global dominance and to impose its version of international order,” Faller told a crowd of about 100 people.“To continue winning this global competition we must be at the top of our game. We need to keep developing the best technology and the best ships, like you see here today.”Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said US President Joe Biden’s administration had highlighted China as a primary military competitor.“The [Miguel Keith] can’t do the patrols, but its value lies in being the staging points for smaller vessels, drones and helicopters … and China is obviously very likely to be allergic to this idea as it could view [the vessel] as a direct challenge to its bid for physical domination of the South China Sea,” he said.Besides China, other countries might be wary of the vessel’s operation in the Asia-Pacific region, “because they may foresee the increased likelihood of tensions ramping up, as such a deployment could potentially mean increased chances of encounters between Chinese and American forces operating in the area”, Koh said. All the information in this video came from the:https://www.scmp.com/news/china/milit…