Recalling that Beijing had recently denied a rumour that the Pakistani government had invited it to build a naval base at Gwadar, an article in Global Times on March 25, 2014, said "this doesn't stop some of the Western countries and India, China's regional competitor, playing with the so-called China threat theory".

Separately, ChinaWant Times said a commentary in China's official English-language daily newspaper 'Global Times' has recommended that the Chinese government should consider establishing overseas bases in the South China Sea or Indian Ocean to facilitate the PLA responding for future "rescue operations". It observed that this was necessary because of the mistrust harbored by several countries in the region towards China, and cited as example India's rejection of China's request to send four warships into the area between the Andaman Sea and the Nicobar archipelago to conduct search and rescue operations. The Global Times reportedly emphasised that China has the potential for contributing in such eventualities and though some countries were willing to cooperate with China they did not have the technology needed for such operations. It assessed that countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Yemen and Sudan which have close ties with China would be ideal as overseas PLA bases, which will also extend Beijing's influence from the South China Sea to Africa.