1,000 miles from the nearest naval base.

The Chinese base in Djibouti for example, is larger than the US base there.

What the US misses is that China doesn't necessarily want a fleet of expensive (and very vulnerable) carriers floating around. It would much rather have islands and coastal bases around important choke points. Sure, the price you pay is force projection, but the benefit is that it's a much more sustainable military.

PLANs has conducting antipiracy missions in gulf of Aden for over a decade now. Their bread and butter frigate type 54 has done port visits across the world. Most 2016 modernization has massively increased UNREP / auxillary fleet. PLAN has enough hulls and capabilities to protect at least her shipping, there's simply no reason to while uncle Sam foots the bill.

And 80% of their oil imports from ME go through a lot of countries that could stop the flow.

Soon enough though

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-launches...

Currently.