{"id":54767,"date":"2023-05-01T12:32:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T03:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/may\/01\/military-construction-on-myanmars-great-coco-island-prompts-fears-of-chinese-involvement"},"modified":"2023-05-01T12:32:13","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T03:32:13","slug":"military-construction-on-myanmars-great-coco-island-prompts-fears-of-chinese-involvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=54767","title":{"rendered":"Military construction on Myanmar\u2019s Great Coco island prompts fears of Chinese involvement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Great Coco lies 55km from India\u2019s Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Beijing has denied it is involved in building a surveillance post there<\/p>\n<p>Since the early 1990s, Myanmar\u2019s Great Coco \u2013 a small, remote island in the Bay of Bengal \u2013 has been at the centre of intrigue. Rumour had it that the island was home to a Chinese intelligence facility, a claim lacking hard evidence. Now concerns over the island, and its uses, have re-emerged.<\/p>\n<p>Satellite images taken in January 2023 show telltale signs of military modernisation, according to a report by the thinktank Chatham House. There\u2019s a newly lengthened 2,300-metre runway and radar station, two new hangars, what appears to be an accommodation block, and a new causeway linking to a smaller island. At the tip of the island is evidence of land clearing efforts, suggesting further construction work is to come.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/may\/01\/military-construction-on-myanmars-great-coco-island-prompts-fears-of-chinese-involvement\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Great Coco lies 55km from India\u2019s Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Beijing has denied it is involved in building a surveillance post thereSince the early 1990s, Myanmar\u2019s Great Coco \u2013 a small, remote island in the Bay of Bengal \u2013 has been at the centre of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,62,82,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-india","category-myanmar","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54768,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54767\/revisions\/54768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}