Chinese Communist officials have invested in dozens of ports across Africa, creating a network of economic relationships that could develop into military assets as the U.S.-China competition develops.
“They have a very clear plan,” Namrata Hasija, a research fellow at the India-based Centre for China Analysis and Strategy, told the Washington Examiner. “They realize that ports are important — their navy is important — if they want to become a superpower.”
Chinese Communist officials have signaled their intentions in black-letter military doctrine, Hasija noted, but the specter of China’s emergence as a global naval power attracted international attention last week following a report that Beijing seeks a military facility in West Africa’s Equatorial Guinea. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan recently dispatched his top deputy to Malabo to discourage such an arrangement, but Beijing’s sustained cultivation of African governments leaves Chinese military strategists with no shortage of alternatives.
CHINA LOOKING TO BUILD NAVAL BASE ON AFRICA’S ATLANTIC COAST
“They’ve got so many options up and down just the west coast of Africa — so many options to pick from,” retired Ambassador David Shinn, who represented the United States in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso and now teaches at George Washington University, observed. “Of all the options that are out there, they’re likely to have a positive response from one or more, at that point at which they need a positive response.”
That assessment actually understates China’s diplomatic clout in the region, according to another close observer of Sino-African relations. “If China decides that tomorrow it’s going to put a base in any of those countries, it’s safe to assume that it’s not going to meet any resistance because of the strength of its political ties,” said Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the National Defense University’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Both analysts agreed that China would not take such an overt and one-dimensional step, however, given Beijing’s preference for economic connections to take precedence in the public eye.
“It’s important to remember that China pursues a blended approach … that mixes commercial, political, economic, and financial goals together,” Nantulya said. “You’re never going to have a situation where the PLA is just doing its military thing.”
Those investment habits have led Chinese companies into at least 46 different ports in sub-Saharan Africa, according to CSIS researchers in 2019. That study identified 16 ports funded and constructed by China, including the port in Equatorial Guinea’s Bata reportedly desired by China’s military, and another 11 that already are operated by China.
“Seven of the eleven ports operated by Chinese entities are deep-water, opening the possibility for larger commercial, but also military, vessels to dock,” the CSIS analysis noted.
That range of possibilities is the product of long-term diplomatic and economic investments in almost every African country, which Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has portrayed as an “unbreakable fraternity in our struggle against imperialism and colonialism.” That claim is not without historical justification, U.S. analysts acknowledge, but some students of China’s overtures to African governments see more practical economic and political motivations.
“China has always believed that African countries hold diplomatic potential — a belief that dates back as far as the late 1950s and early 1960s,” Hasija noted. “In more contemporary times, however, Chinese interest in Africa was sparked by the events surrounding Tiananmen Square in June 1989, when African leaders were quick to support Beijing in the face of worldwide criticism.”
Those overtures were not matched by the U.S., where officials have “generally neglected Africa since the end of the Cold War,” as Shinn put it, after years of allowing anti-Soviet priorities to dictate choices such as support for the apartheid South African regime. That aloofness left China free to turn political affinities into economic relationships in recent decades, a process that accelerated as Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative dovetailed with Africa’s need for modern infrastructure.
“Africa is way undersupplied with modern ports, and so this is a growth area for Chinese business,” said Dr. Deborah Bräutigam, who directs the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It’s win-win for them — they invest in better ports, they get better ability to facilitate their products going in, African products coming out — all of that becomes more efficient. And their companies get business to build these things, which are needed.”
President Joe Biden’s team is well aware of those dynamics. The White House National Security Council’s special adviser for Africa Strategy, Judd Devermont, co-authored the CSIS analysis that traced the outlines of China’s port investments in 2019. And Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently made his first trip to Africa as Biden’s top envoy, with stops in Kenya, Senegal, and Nigeria.
“The United States promotes democratic governance, respect for human rights, and transparency,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “Our focus is on strengthening local capacity, creating African jobs, and working with our allies and partners to promote economic growth that is beneficial, sustainable, and inclusive over the long term.”
That emphasis on “creating African jobs” presents a contrast with Chinese investment, which often includes a contractual obligation that Chinese workers populate the construction sites, but Biden’s team is careful not to portray U.S. interests in Africa as a byproduct of the rivalry with China.
“The reality is the PRC is a global strategic competitor,” the spokesperson said. “Our Africa policy is about Africa, not about China. U.S. policy doesn’t ask our partners to choose between the United States and the PRC. In short, we increase African options, not limit them.”
China’s emergence as a naval power around Africa’s coastline raises the question of whether Beijing could limit U.S. military operations. China has established its first overseas military installation in Djibouti, giving the Chinese navy a valuable outpost on shipping lanes that link the Red Sea to the wider Indian Ocean.
Biden’s team, fearing a similar development on the western coast of Africa, reportedly warned Equatorial Guinean authorities that “certain potential steps involving [Chinese] activity there would raise national-security concerns,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
China could have a legitimate security interest in such a West African facility given threats of piracy in the region.
“The Gulf of Guinea, if we look at any map of piracy activity worldwide, it’s all there,” Bräutigam observed, while cautioning that China’s plans remain unclear despite U.S. reports. “China’s the world’s biggest trading nation. Piracy is going to be affecting Chinese ships. … They would want to have some toehold to be able to respond quickly to situations like that.”
Those real risks create the kind of political cover for military expansion desired by Chinese officials who are “very, very sensitive to the fact that foreign basing is a sensitive issue on the continent,” as Nantulya put it.
Shinn, the former ambassador to Ethiopia, likewise noted that China could derive significant military benefits through West African facilities, even without going through the process of acquiring a full naval base.
“The rub will come if it seems to be something to make it possible to project [power] beyond the coast of West Africa and well into the Atlantic,” Shinn said, noting that Washington would not “be very happy” if Chinese submarines were to begin refueling in West Africa before continuing toward the U.S.
“In the final analysis, the African governments have the authority to say yes or no to some sort of more substantial Chinese use of their ports, and I have no doubt that some African governments are going to say [no],” Shinn said. “I think there are any number of African governments that take that position, but there will be one — [or] two, three, four — willing to go further than that for whatever reason.”
Those outposts will afford Chinese naval forces with valuable opportunities to hone their skills in a low-stakes environment.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“You can imagine the amount of experience that they’ve been able to build in terms of being able to operate overseas for long periods of time,” Nantulya said. “China wants to be seen as a credible power, right, that is able to protect its expanding overseas interests.”
