A spokesman of the Chinese Defence Ministry has rejected and dismissed Indian media reports of Beijing establishing naval bases in the Indian Ocean area, including in Sri Lanka.
Senior Colonel Geng Yansheng told a media briefing in Beijing on Thursday that the Indian media reports suggesting that China is extending its military strength to Indian Ocean region after two occurrences of a Chinese submarine docking in Sri Lanka's Colombo Port, were inaccurate.
The military spokesman, according to the Lanka Page web site, further stated that a Chinese naval submarine together with the Chinese naval escort task force had gone to the Gulf of Aden and into waters off the Somali coast to perform escort missions.
On its way back, the submarine had made a technical docking in Sri Lanka twice, he added.