China tensions rising, US revives WWII-era Pacific airfield

In the middle of the Pacific ocean, an abandoned U.S. airfield once key to dropping the nuclear bomb on Japan — and nearly lost to history amid encroaching forest — is being revived.

But as the Americans hack away at the jungle overgrowth at Tinian island airfield and other old, World War II-era bases across the region, it won't be with Japan on their mind.

Rather, it's Beijing's growing influence in the Pacific that is spurring the recovery of a slew of abandoned runways on the 100 square-kilometer speck of land that makes up Tinian, part of the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands.

"Rehabilitation of World War II-era airfields has provided Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) a rapidly executable avenue to enhance infrastructure in the region," a spokesperson told AFP.

Though the statement mentioned a "sense of urgency" enabling PACAF to "enhance... warfighting capability and improve deterrent posture alongside Allies and partners," it did not mention China directly.

But Washington's plans for what officials have described as "an extensive" facility on Tinian comes amid a serious military pivot to the Pacific in recent years — and as China builds its own new bases in the region, including in disputed waters.

"The most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security is the (People's Republic of China's) coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences," the Department of Defense's 2022 planning document, called the National Defense Strategy, reads.

Tinian's old military airfield "has extensive pavement underneath the overgrown jungle. We'll be clearing that jungle out between now and...