Tag Archives: Djibouti China

Money and Power: First Spaceport in Africa Built by China in Djibouti

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When China began building its first overseas military outpost—a naval base in Djibouti—America and its allies were alarmed. The facility, which opened in 2017, sits just 13km (eight miles) from America’s largest base in Africa. France, Japan and Italy have bases there, too. Before long the Americans accused China’s forces of shining lasers at their pilots. China complained that Western aircraft were overflying its outpost to photograph it.

That friction has since lapsed into grudging coexistence in the former French colony, which is not much bigger than New Jersey. But a new threat to this uneasy balance has emerged with the announcement on January 9, 2023 that a Hong Kong-based company with links to Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant, will build and operate a spaceport covering at least ten square kilometers (four square miles) in Djibouti.

The facility will include seven launch-pads and three rocket-testing pads, says Hong Kong Aerospace Technology Group Ltd (HKATG), which signed a memorandum of understanding on the project with Djibouti’s government and a Chinese company that operates a special economic zone there. In March they will sign a contract for the deal, which allows construction of power stations, water plants, roads and seaports.

Ismail Omar Guelleh, Djibouti’s president, said on Twitter that the $1bn spaceport will take five years to build and be transferred to the government after 30 years. If completed, the spaceport offers Djibouti a chance to claim a piece of the multi-billion-dollar global space industry. There are about two dozen active spaceports worldwide. Africa has none…Djibouti has much to offer. It is not far from the equator, where the Earth rotates fastest, giving rockets a boost. Access to the sea would enable clients to import rockets and other bulky equipment by ship. They could also launch eastwards over the ocean, minimizing risks for people in surrounding areas while taking advantage of the Earth’s rotation.

For China, which hopes to develop a private space industry to rival America’s, Djibouti could provide an alternative to the four launch sites on its own soil. These are operating at capacity…

Excerpts from China, Africa and Space: Preparing for Launch, Economist, Jan. 21, 2023

The Neck and Neck Race in Africa

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Classified American intelligence reports suggest China intends to establish its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean in the tiny Central African country of Equatorial Guinea. The officials…said the reports raise the prospect that Chinese warships would be able to rearm and refit opposite the East Coast of the U.S.—a threat that is setting off alarm bells at the White House and Pentagon. Principal deputy U.S. national security adviser Jon Finer visited Equatorial Guinea in October 2021 on a mission to persuade President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his son and heir apparent, Vice President Teodoro “Teodorin” Nguema Obiang Mangue, to reject China’s overtures…

In Equatorial Guinea, the Chinese likely have an eye on Bata, according to a U.S. official. Bata already has a Chinese-built deep-water commercial port on the Gulf of Guinea, and excellent highways link the city to Gabon and the interior of Central Africa….

Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony with a population of 1.4 million, secured independence in 1968. The capital, Malabo, is on the island of Bioko, while Bata is the largest city on the mainland section of the country, which is wedged between Gabon and Cameroon. Mr. Obiang has ruled the country since 1979. The discovery of huge offshore gas and oil reserves in 1996 allegedly allowed members of his family to spend lavishly on exotic cars, mansions and other luxuries…The State Department has accused the Obiang regime of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture and other abuses. A U.S. Senate committee issued a report in 2004 criticizing Washington-based Riggs Bank for turning “a blind eye to evidence suggesting the bank was handling the proceeds of foreign corruption” in accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in deposits controlled by Mr. Obiang, his wife and other relatives……

Equatorial Guinea relies on American oil companies to extract offshore resources that have made the country the richest on the sub-Saharan mainland, as measured by per capita annual gross domestic product….Chinese state-owned companies have built 100 commercial ports around Africa in the past two decades, according to Chinese government data….

The State Department recently raised Equatorial Guinea’s ranking in the annual assessment of how diligently countries combat human trafficking. The upgrade could allow the Biden administration to offer maritime-security assistance to help win Equatorial Guinea’s cooperation.

Excerpts from MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS, China Seeks First Military Base on Africa’s Atlantic Coast, U.S. Intelligence Finds, WSJ, Dec. 5, 2021

Winning Strategy: How China Uses US Firms to Get What it Wants

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Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has described the creation of fully domestic supply chains as a matter of national security. The question is how to build them. Chinese officials know that they cannot turn their backs on the world. Exports are still an important source of revenue for many firms. And China must attract technology and investment from abroad. Pushing too transparently for “indigenous innovation”, a term once bandied about by the government, only makes foreigners wary. Striking the right balance is tough.

Enter the newest of China’s big economic policies: the “dual-circulation” strategy. At its most basic it refers to keeping China open to the world (the “great international circulation”), while reinforcing its own market (the “great domestic circulation”). If that sounds rather vague, it is: the government has not spelled out the details.  In May 2020, at a meeting of the Politburo, Mr Xi described dual circulation as the framework for economic policy… More recent comments by Mr Xi on the economy have been less about promoting consumption and more about bolstering China’s defences. China needs “self-developed, controllable” supply chains, with at least one alternative source for vital products, he said in a speech published on October 3, 2020.

Even more striking was his inversion of the idea of international circulation. Instead of talking about it in terms of the economic benefits China reaps from globalisation, he emphasized only the strategic purpose of opening China’s doors to foreign firms, ie that making them more dependent on the Chinese market would deter foreign powers from putting pressure on the country.

Excerpts from Economic Policy: Circling Back, Economist, Nov. 7, 2020

See also China Has One Powerful Friend Left in the U.S.: Wall Street—Trade deal left many U.S. industries disappointed, but financial firms such as BlackRock see a potential windfall

China’s Nuclear Triad: Land, Sumbarines and Bombers

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Based on United States Report released in 2020 “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” by the Secretary of Defense, China’s progress in upgrading its strategic bombers to carry nuclear payloads puts it on the cusp of achieving a “triad” of delivery systems ((1) land-launched nuclear missiles, (2) nuclear-armed submarines, and (3) aircraft delivered nuclear bombs).  The development of a nuclear triad raises the long-term stakes in the complex relationship between Beijing and Washington. …The heavy emphasis on China’s nuclear improvements will probably be used by the Pentagon to press lawmakers and the public to support the massive reinvestment already underway in modernized nuclear weapons. This includes the B-21 bomber, an $85 billion Ground Based Strategic Deterrent ICBM program and the $128 billion Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine.

China’s defense ministry denounced the report as a document created with a “zero-sum-game mindset and Cold War mentality,” saying that the U.S. had “misinterpreted” the country’s nuclear policy and stirred up confrontation with Taiwan. “It’s extremely wrong and China firmly rejects it.”  As part of President Xi Jinping’s efforts to build a “world class” military by 2049, the Defense Department report said the People’s Liberation Army has already achieved parity with or exceeded the U.S. in at least three key areas: shipbuilding, land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles and integrated air defense systems.

While the country has one overseas military base, in the East African nation of Djibouti, China’s government “is very likely already considering and planning for additional overseas military logistics facilities to support naval, air and ground forces…”.  China’s current nuclear arsenal includes 100 silo or road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, as many as six Jin-class nuclear missile submarines capable of carrying 12 missiles each and a new air-refuelable H-6N long-range bomber. The bomber is an upgrade on a previous model and comes with a modified fuselage “that allows it to carry either a drone or an air-launched ballistic missile that may be nuclear-capable. 

Excerpts from Anthony Capaccio, Pentagon Warns China Is Nearing a Milestone in Nuclear Weapons Buildup, Bloomberg, Sept. 1, 2020

China denounced the Pentagon report. According to Xinhua, the Pentagon report is crowded with anti-China hogwash. Fear-mongering over China has always been the Pentagon’s trick to demand more appropriations from the U.S. Congress. A fabricated grave threat to world peace can also help Washington sell more weapons to its allies, and serves as an excuse for America’s pursuit of global domination…While Washington is selling its latest “China-scare” fiction to the world, it is hard to overlook such facts that the United States spent more on military than 144 countries combined in 2018 and maintains nearly 800 military bases in over 70 countries.

Excerpt from Commentary: Lies, conspiracies behind Pentagon’s China military report, Xinhua, Sept. 5, 2020


The Space Rat Race

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India, Japan and other space-faring countries are waking up to a harsh reality: Earth’s orbit is becoming a more dangerous place as the U.S., China and Russia compete for control of the final frontier…New Delhi is nervous because China has made no secret of its desire for influence in the Indian Ocean. China set up a naval base in Djibouti, a gateway to the ocean at the Horn of Africa. It secured a 99-year lease to the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka. It is deeply involved in development projects in Maldives.

India has established itself as a player in the budget satellite business. It even put a probe into orbit around Mars in 2014, in a U.S.-assisted project that cost just $76 million. But it is scurrying to enhance its ability to monitor China’s activities, and the partnership with Japan is part of this.  Another sign that space is becoming a defense focus for India came on Dec. 19, when the country launched its third military communications satellite, the GSAT-7A. The satellite will connect with ground-based radar, bases and military aircraft, along with drone control networks.

China’s success in landing a craft on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3, 2019 came as a fresh reminder of its growing prowess. In late December, China also achieved global coverage with its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. Only the U.S., Russia and the European Union had that capability.China aims to launch a Mars explorer in 2020 and complete its own Earth-orbiting space station around 2022.  In the back of Indian and Japanese officials’ minds is likely a stunning test China conducted in 2007. Beijing successfully destroyed one of its own weather satellites with a weapon, becoming only the third nation to pull off such a feat, after the Soviet Union and the U.S.

In December 2018, President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Defense to create a Space Command, widely seen as a precursor to a full-fledged Space Force.  There were 1,957 active satellites orbiting Earth as of Nov. 30, 2018 according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit U.S. advocacy group. America had the most by far, with 849, or 43% of the total. China was No. 2, with 284, followed by Russia with 152.  Japan and India had a combined 132 — 75 for the former and 57 for the latter.

Excerpts fromNUPUR SHAW India and Japan awaken to risks of superpower space race, Nikkei Asian Review, Jan. 8, 2019

Slyly Conquering East Africa

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The rulers of United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of whose components, Dubai, own a majority stake in DP World, one of the world’s largest maritime firms with perations in 40 countries.It is one of several Gulf states trying to gain a strategic foothold in east Africa through ports. Controlling these offers commercial and military advantages but risks exacerbating tensions in the region…

DP World thinks the region from Sudan to Somalia needs 10-12 ports. It has just half that. The firm’s first foray was on Djibouti’s coast. When DP World won its first concessions there in the 1990s, the Emiratis were among the few investors interested in the small and poor former French colony. DP World built and operated a new container terminal, Doraleh,and helped finance roads and other infrastructure. Doraleh is now the country’s largest employer and the government’s biggest source of revenue. It runs at nearly full capacity, handling 800,000 containers a year. Much of its cargo travels along a Chinese-built railway from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.

Djibouti’s profile rose further after the terrorist attacks on America of September 11th, 2001, when America opened a military base there. France and China also have bases; other navies patrol off its coast to deter Somali pirates. But when the Emiratis wanted to open their own naval base they were rebuffed, partly because of their close ties to Djibouti’s rival, Eritrea (the two states had a bloody border dispute in 2008). In 2015 the UAE started building a naval base in Assab, in southern Eritrea. The base has been used in the Saudi-led war against Houthi rebels in Yemen….In 2016 DP World won a 30-year concession to operate the port of Berbera in Somaliland, which declared independence in 1991 (though no foreign government recognises it). Critics said the deal would hasten the break-up of Somalia.

The Horn ports all sit near the Bab al-Mandab strait, a vital choke-point at the mouth of the Red Sea: 4.8m barrels of oil passed through it every day in 2016. Competition is getting fierce, though. Qatar and its ally, Turkey, are building ports in Sudan. Saudi Arabia is in talks to set up a naval base in Djibouti. All three Gulf states are trying to snap up farmland in east Africa, part of a broader effort to secure food supplies for their arid countries. Emirati-built ports could one day export crops from Emirati-owned farms…

Gulf states could also find themselves in competition with China…In February 2018 Djibouti seized the Doraleh port, a concession to the UAE… Shippers believe it took Doraleh as a sop to China, to which it is heavily indebted. In July 2018, Djibouti opened the first phase of a new $3.5bn free-trade zone, set to be the largest in Africa when it is finished. Built mostly by state-owned Chinese firms, it sits next to Doraleh. DP World says the project violates the terms of its concession and is threatening to sue.

Excerpts from Red Sea Scamble: Ports on the Horn, Economist, July 21, 2018, at 33

Who’s Fighting over Djibouti?

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The top US general for Africa told lawmakers the American military could face “significant” consequences should China take a key port in Djibouti….  In Febuary 2018, Djibouti ended its contract with Dubai’s DP World, one of the world’s biggest port operators, to run the Doraleh Container Terminal, citing failure to resolve a dispute that began in 2012.  DP World called the move an illegal seizure of the terminal and said it had begun new arbitration proceedings before the London Court of International Arbitration.

During a congressional hearing on March 7, 2018, dominated by concerns about China’s role in Africa, lawmakers said they had seen reports that Djibouti seized control of the port to give it to China as a gift. China has already built a military base in Djibouti, just miles from a critical US military base.

Djibouti is strategically located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea on the route to the Suez Canal.  Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, the top US military commander overseeing troops in Africa, said if China placed restrictions on the port’s use, it could affect resupplying the US base in Djibouti and the ability of Navy ships to refuel there.  Djibouti hosts a vital US military base home to about 4,000 personnel,[Camp Lemonnier] including special operations forces, and is a launchpad for operations in Yemen and Somalia.

China has sought to be visible in Africa, including through high-profile investment in public infrastructure projects, as it deepens trade ties.  Waldhauser said the United States would be unable to match the scale of Chinese investment throughout Africa, noting Beijing’s construction of shopping malls, government buildings and even soccer stadiums.  “We’ll never outspend the Chinese in Africa,” Waldhauser said, noting some Chinese investments in Djibouti.

In 2018, the US military put countering China, along with Russia, at the centre of a new national defence strategy.  The Pentagon said China was a part of “revisionist powers” that “seek to create a world consistent with authoritarian models.”

Excerpts from  Significant consequences if China takes port in Djibouti, Reuters, Mar. 7, 2018

Chinese Military Base in Africa: Djibouti

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China is negotiating a military base in the strategic port of Djibouti, an historic development that would see the US and China each have bases in the small nation that guards the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. President Ismail Omar Guelleh says that discussions are “ongoing” and that Beijing is “welcome”.  Djibouti is already home to Camp Lemonnier, the military headquarters used by US Special Forces for covert, anti-terror and other operations in Yemen and in Africa. France, the former colonial master, and Japan also have bases in the port, which is used by many foreign navies to fight piracy in neighbouring Somalia…

China signed a security and defence agreement with Djibouti in February 2014. But a Chinese military base in Djibouti, the first in Africa, “would definitely be historic”, according to David Shinn, a former US ambassador to Ethiopia.  The US was reportedly angry about the conclusion last year of the China-Djibouti defence deal last year. But Shinn predicts that the US will take it in its stride…

China is reportedly considering a permanent military base in Obock, Djibouti’s northern port city.  “China clearly has a goal of building a blue-water navy, which means it will at some point go well beyond the east coast of Africa and the western Indian Ocean, and it has to think — long term — about how it would be able to service its naval vessels as they go further and further, ” he explained.

Camp Lemonnier, home to 4,000 American citizens, is in the south-east of Djibouti. The US in May 2015 signed a 20-year lease, indicating its willingness to stay. Terms of the lease were not disclosed.

A new Chinese deep-sea port in Djibouti…could provide a boost to China’s sphere of influence, which already extends from the South China Sea, along the west coast of Myanmar to the Arabian-Sea coastal port of Gwadar, Pakistan — a major destination in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.  “Establishing these deep-sea ports is really about securing its economic interests, projecting influence and securing oil exports from the Gulf region,”…..

Trade between Africa and China, in excess of 200 billion dollars (180 billion euros), is above the continent’s trade with the European Union or the US.  In Djibouti, China is already financing major infrastructure projects estimated to total more than 9 billion dollars (8 billion euros), including improved ports, airports and railway lines….There was speculation that Russia also wanted to establish a presence in Djibouti, but the presence of Russian warships may have created even more controversy in western nations because of the crisis in the Ukraine.

Excerpts  Michel Arseneault, ‘Historic’ Chinese military base to open in Horn of Africa, Agence France Presse, May 11, 2015

US Military Laboratory, Djibouti

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Other states, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, that also began as ports have diversified in recent decades, but not Djibouti. It lacks the skilled workforce to become a financial-services centre. Yet thanks to three unrelated developments it has turned into an ever more extraordinary transit hub

First, its backdoor leads to the world’s most populous landlocked country, Ethiopia, home to a fast-growing economy that needs access to the sea. Most of the food, oil and consumer goods imported for Ethiopia’s 83m-plus people passes through Djibouti. Instability in Ethiopia’s eastern neighbour, Somalia, and bad blood with Ethiopia’s other old enemy, Eritrea, mean that Djibouti is the only main transit option. Hence a new railway line to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, is being built.

At the same time, freighters chugging between Europe and Asia have been seeking an alternative to their traditional halfway stop in Dubai, which involves a detour into the Gulf. Djibouti is more directly en route. In 2009 it spent $400m on a state-of-the-art container terminal, the only one in the region. In the five previous years, trade volume had already doubled and is set to do so again. To expand still more, Djibouti’s port authority is close to securing $4.4 billion from abroad for another five terminals which, it is hoped, will be ready in the next four years.

Third, the woes of Djibouti’s neighbours have brought the world’s most powerful navies to its shores. Piracy in Somalia and anti-terror campaigns on the Arabian peninsula, only 32km (20 miles) away across the water, have created what a new report by Chatham House, a London-based think-tank, calls an “international maritime and military laboratory”.The United States is the biggest lab rat. Djibouti hosts the only permanent American base in Africa, home to 3,200 people, not all of them naval. Since 2010, American drones have been flying from Camp Lemonnier, beside the main airport, making it the busiest base for drones outside Afghanistan. Some 50 military flights take off every day, including a squadron of F-15E jets, which arrived in 2011. The Pentagon has drawn up plans to spend $1.4 billion to expand the base and triple the number of its special forces there to more than 1,000.

France, the former colonial master, still guarantees Djibouti’s security and keeps 2,000 troops there. The port-state also hosts the biggest military presence of Japan and China outside Asia, both drawn by the fight against Somali piracy. Along with Western countries, they co-operate keenly to protect commercial vessels—though everyone spies on each other. Djibouti also often hosts security-minded delegations from Russia, Iran and India. Even in the cold war, rarely was neutral territory so colourful or crowded.

All this toing and froing has brought Djibouti windfall revenues. President Ismail Omar Guelleh, whose family has been in charge since independence in 1977, dishes out a good slice of it to the country’s small elite, which is gratefully compliant. The rest of the almost 1m inhabitants are among the poorest in Africa, with 60% of them unemployed.Rattled by the Arab spring and fearing that even minor instability could frighten away foreign military friends and investors, the president has embarked on a carefully staged course of political reform. During legislative elections in February a fifth of the seats were allocated in proportion to votes cast rather than under the previous winner-takes-all system that has long favoured the president’s allies.

Opposition parties were given access to state media and allowed to hold rallies. They won 16 out of 65 seats but then alleged fraud, leading to demonstrations, street clashes with the police and the incarceration of the leading protesters.

The Horn of Africa: Containers—and containing dissent, Economist, May 4, 2013, at 49