The announcement at the end of November that China was opening a naval military facility in Djibouti, a small nation in East Africa with a population of less than one million, was greeted with relative equanimity by the US, and other players. Despite the fact that this is the first such installation that China has been involved with since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and in the current unease particularly in the US about China’s rising role in the world, there are a number of good strategic reasons why China taking this move is probably late in the day and driven by absolute necessity, rather than being early and a sign of its burgeoning international ambitions.
China’s involvement in Africa generally has attracted commentary since the mid 2000s, particularly regarding its interests in investments in infrastructure. Howard French, the American journalist, wrote a lucid study of Chinese commercial and political interests in west and central Africa in 2014. There might be a million Chinese now living and working on the continent, he showed. But it is a place which offers huge challenges for Chinese interests, and part of the function of the Djibouti port which Beijing intends to build is to give China some capacity to look after these increasing interests without having to constantly service them from home. The huge efforts to repatriate some 35 thousand Chinese stranded in Libya during the unrest there in 2011 are a case in point. China knows the volatility not only of the African region but of the Middle East, and some ability to have capacity to look after its citizens and interests should there be problems is important now. The most we can conclude from this is that China’s role in Africa is not a straightforward one, but dynamic and developing.
Beyond this, in the specific case of Djibouti China is involving itself in a country where most other major players have facilities. France has been there for many decades, since the colonial era. The US, at Camp Lemonnier, has 4 thousand personnel, an airstrip, and full military capacity. Even the Japanese have a small presence. There is a simple reason for this. Djibouti is adjacent to a hugely important logistic route through the Indian Ocean where so much experts of resources and oil from the Middle East goes. It is also a place plagued by piracy. China, with over half its petrol now coming from this region, has always felt vulnerable to instability in this area. It currently has to rely on naval forces send from China. It can now at least have a place in the region where, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Beijing said when announcing the port in November, it could resupply and service its ships.
It helps that some of these ships are involved in UN actions against piracy. Since 2008 China has participated in anti-piracy efforts, and so has a track record in this area. It has strong reasons for doing so. Piracy is as much a curse to its commercial interests as the terrorist threat. Djibouti is also a key observation point over the Middle East, with its fractious and unstable political situation now, where China has managed to maintain broad interests and relations and will almost become more deeply involved in the coming years.
It is an anomaly that the world’s second largest economy, and largest exporter and second largest importer, should have so little capacity beyond its shores. Inevitably the proposed port in Djibouti will be interpreted by some as an inevitable sign of Chinese ambition, and the desire now to have a world class navy with global reach, serving China’s interest, and clashing with those of the US. Interestingly, however, the US commander in Djibouti sounded relatively sanguine about the Chinese plans. And the president of the country, Ismail Omar Guellah, simply stated that any partner was welcome to establish interests like this in the impoverished country to preserve regional stability. It is better to have China as a stakeholder here than an outsider feeling alienated and uninvolved in areas where, in fact, it should be more deeply integrated.
Whether this port will have any impact on China’s relations with the rest of the continent, and mark a moment when it significantly increases the pace of its involvement is another matter. In many ways, its tight focus and limited operations only typifies China’s cautiousness. Excited talk in the last few years that Africa is becoming China’s second continent have always seemed several steps ahead of what was really happening. Chinese, like others, have learned that this region is a complex one. They have therefore, in investment and commercial engagement, been increasingly careful.
Longer term, President, Xi Jinping in talking to military figures in China in November did make clear that the upgrading and modernization of China’s military forces would increasingly involve a naval component, and the fixation with land forces and land military strategy needs to be revised. China’s military budget now comes to USD140 billion, and in the parades to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Sino Japanese war in Beijing in September, some 80 per cent of the kit displayed was new. China’s lack of combat experience, however, means that observers should be careful about interpreting this as an indication of aggressive intent. It could as well be explained by showing just how far China had to come over the last four decades to modernize its old forces and have better technology, management and command structures. Djibouti cannot be interpreted as some sign of aggressive intent, but rather a natural thing for a country to do that now has a global network of economic partners.
Kerry Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London. From 2012 to 2015 he was Professor of Chinese Politics and Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia. Prior to this he worked at Chatham House from 2006 to 2012, as Senior Fellow and then Head of the Asia Programme. From 1998 to 2005 he worked at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing.
Source: King's College London