Forget Greenland - Securing Diego Garcia Should Come First

As part of the deal, the UK will pay Mauritius between US$3.4 billion to $35 billion over 99 years. The Keir Starmer government cites the lower figure; the Conservative opposition cites the higher. The payments are heavily front-loaded.

Miss just one payment, however, and Mauritius can terminate the deal – and boot the Americans. One can easily imagine a future British government unwilling to spend money on Mauritius, or simply disinclined toward the United States.

There are other problems. Mauritius is a signatory to the Treaty of Pelindaba, signed by 51 African nations, which prohibits nuclear weapons on their territories.

US forces on Diego Garcia do sometimes have nuclear weapons. So once the deal is signed, this will become a point of contention. And expect debilitating“lawfare”, likely with Chinese encouragement, claiming the Americans are violating Mauritius' sovereignty and law.

It is not hard to imagine a future US administration giving in to pressure and declaring its presence on Diego Garcia“untenable.” It gets worse. China is already deeply embedded in Mauritius and with its government.

Expect, one day, a Chinese company to get approval to build a“tourist resort” or“fishing port” on one of the other islands in the Chagos archipelago. With surveillance systems in place – and possibly a handful of“containerized missiles” hidden in shipping containers, Diego Garcia would face huge strategic risk.

Britain claims it is simply getting ahead of potential legal challenges to its ownership of the Chagos Islands, citing a 2019 International Court of Justice ruling against it. But that ruling was“advisory”, and Britain rejected the court's jurisdiction on such matters when it joined the ICJ.

The Starmer government also appears to hope the US won't notice that the original UK-US agreement over Diego Garcia states that Britain will not transfer sovereignty and that the base agreement lasts for at least 50 plus 20 years, through 2036.

But there may be more at play here: Ask a simple question: Who benefits from imperiling Diego Garcia? Answer: China.

China has been steadily increasing its presence in the Indian Ocean region. It's eyebrow-raising to see the British government ignore widespread public opposition and security concerns. So, too, was its approval of a huge new Chinese Embassy in London.

And the Starmer government talks of a new“Golden Era” with Beijing and of deepening economic ties. Starmer himself is on his way to Beijing.

Could the UK government be deliberately undercutting America's strategic position? Taken together with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron's similar cozying up to China and the question is not unreasonable.