China is already working to block Force Design 2030

Thanks to Tom for the link!

via Financial Times

Three years ago, Xu Changyu made his first attempt to get his hands on an island in the South Pacific. The vice-president of China Sam Enterprise Group quietly negotiated a 75-year lease on Tulagi, an islet with a natural deepwater harbour in the Solomon Islands.

The deal was blocked after the attorney-general declared it unlawful, but not without triggering suspicion among the public and the country’s traditional western allies that China was looking to build a military base in a spot that once hosted the British, Japanese and US navies.

Xu would be back. When Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare visited China in October 2019, he accompanied Sogavare during the entire trip. In April 2020, he registered China Sam, which produces weapons and has connections with China’s defence ministry, as a foreign investor in the Solomon Islands, removing one of the legal hurdles that derailed the first deal.

Five months later, his company was involved in an even bolder proposal. The premier of another Solomon Islands province received a letter, which purported to be from AVIC International Project Engineering, a subsidiary of a Chinese state aerospace and defence group. The letter said AVIC and China Sam Enterprise Group intended to study “opportunities to develop naval and infrastructure projects on leased land for the People’s Liberation Army Navy [ . . . ] with exclusive rights for 75 years”.

Story here 

They're looking to extend their A2/AD bubble.  For better or worse the US Navy is gonna have to fight the Chinese Navy in blue water and they're gonna have to win.

They better get ALOT harder, FAST!