It all started in Hainan.
The US military began tracking the flight of the downed balloon over the United States in early February as it left the southern Chinese island, US officials told The New York Times on Tuesday (February 14th). , on condition of anonymity.
The balloon affair was an opportunity for many in the West to discover the existence of this island which, for the Chinese middle class, often rhymes with holidays and heavenly beaches.
"It's a bit like the Hawaii of China", sums up the American channel CNN.
Luxury hotels and nuclear submarines
But for Beijing and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), Hainan represents a concentration of military bases and one of the main symbols of the projection of Chinese forces towards South Asia and the South China Sea, a region where Beijing wants to impose its leadership.
From a military point of view, "Hainan is above all inseparable from the Sanya base," says Antoine Bondaz, specialist in security issues in China at the Foundation for Strategic Research.
The city of Sanya, too, evokes above all a succession of luxury hotels, illustrations of Chinese ambitions to make it a tourist factory since the beginning of the 1990s. the bays of Yulin and Yalong, which shelter one of the jewels of the Chinese military navy.
It is, in fact, in this base, which has been constantly expanding since the beginning of the 2000s, that there is the largest concentration of SSBN submarines in the region.
This acronym designates nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, that is to say, which carry nuclear ballistic missiles.
China has at least four in this base, alongside a dozen nuclear-powered attack submarines (which, for their part, do not carry a nuclear bomb), according to analyzes from the National Center for Space Studies in a report on the naval base in Hainan, published in 2019.
A fleet of submarines which makes Hainan "an important element of the Chinese nuclear deterrent system", underlines Zeno Leoni, specialist in Chinese security issues at King's College London.
The eyes and ears of Beijing
It is also from this base that the PLA launched the first 100% "made in China" aircraft carrier in 2019. "Beijing has also installed the missiles of its anti-aircraft defense system there", specifies Zeno Léoni.
Thus, the Yulin base also represents an important asset for air control.
It is therefore difficult to ignore the military importance of this site since it "hosts all that the Chinese army has of the most technologically advanced equipment", summarizes Ho Ting "Bosco" Hung, China specialist at the 'International Team for the Study of Security of Verona (ITSS Verona).
"The Sanya-Yulin base contributes a lot to the image of leading sea and air power in Asia that China is building," he continued.
All this brand new and state-of-the-art equipment "will only be really useful in the event of an open conflict", underlines however Zeno Léoni.
The Yulin base represents above all an investment for the future allowing Beijing to prepare for a possible maritime face-to-face in the region with an adversary like the United States.
Despite everything, Yulin is already proving its usefulness.
This site serves as a base for the maritime militia, a force attached to the Chinese army composed of military and maritime trade professionals.
"These are units that do not use warships, but rather fishing vessels to do maritime espionage or provoke the other states that have interests in the China Sea [Philippines, Vietnam, etc.] in approaching the disputed islands, such as the Paracel Islands", underlines Zeno Léoni.
This island is therefore Beijing's eye on the South China Sea.
And not only thanks to its spy fishing vessels or balloons, whose launch site would be on the east coast of Hainan, according to the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at the University of Monterrey, Australia.
In 2021, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank in Washington, discovered a new military site in the west of the island, which would be "entirely dedicated to the interception of signals and the electronic warfare".
Large satellite dishes, radars and relay antennas built since 2018 would indicate that Hainan would also be listening to Beijing in the region.
The possibility of a large island
But why such a concentration of military equipment on an island supposed to be the seaside resort par excellence in China?
Historically, the "militarization" of Hainan began in the early 2000s. "China had just completed its major army reform of the 1990s and was experiencing a period of very strong economic growth: Beijing became aware of its military capacity and economy to impose itself in the South China Sea", recounts Zeno Léoni.
It was still necessary to find the place from which to project its military power.
In this region, the port areas on the coast - such as Shenzhen or Zhanjiang - had a flaw: "We had to build military installations, which risked making mainland China a target, and Beijing wanted to avoid it if possible" , notes the specialist from King's College London.
Building on Hainan shifted the risk off mainland China.
In addition, "the maritime shipping lanes that pass directly through Hainan provide military vessels with quick access to the South China Sea," says Ho Ting "Bosco" Hung.
And then Hainan is great.
Similar in size to Belgium, this island of more than 30,000 km² can accommodate a number of military installations without them stepping on each other's toes.
While leaving tourists to bask on the beaches, waiting for Beijing to decide whether or not to use Hainan to press its demands on Taiwan or the islands of the region.
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