The World Tribune reports:
Ecuador’s president has offered the Chinese government an airbase currently serving as one of the last U.S. military outposts in South America. An Air Force E-3 Sentry lands at the U.S. base airport in Manta, Ecuador, one of the U.S. military’s last outposts in South America. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said during his recent visit to China that he would offer Beijing a lease on the Manta Airport, the presidential website reported last week. Currently, Manta is used by U.S. military forces for operations. The contract is up in 2009 and Correa will not renew it, a transport and public works ministry communications official told BNamericas. Correa said access to the air base is part of a plan for Manta to become a “doorway” for China’s entry to Latin America.
A Chinese military base just a few hundred miles south of the Panama Canal–that shouldn’t worry American military planners in the least!
