China’s increasing military presence in Africa is seen as disturbing in Washington, with United States officials airing concerns that Asia’s biggest economy is gaining the upper hand in winning regional allies.
Djibouti, a small remote country at the Horn of Africa, is at the heart of China’s multibillion-dollar “Belt and Road Initiative”, supporting Beijing’s juggling of commercial and military objectives amid Western suspicions about its motives.
“They (China) have upped their game, in plain language, and ultimately they are offering things that our partners want, that our partners need,” an official with US Africa Command (AFRICOM) told CNN.
“In places, we have concerns we are being out-competed.”
The comments referred to China’s expansion in Djibouti, a tiny country located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, close to one of the world’s busiest trading routes.
China is about to complete a $3 billion railroad from the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Africa’s second largest country to Djibouti, Ethiopia’s only outlet to the sea.
China is also investing $400 million in modernizing Djibouti’s notoriously undersized port, where for the past 17 years (since the Ethiopians tried and failed to take Eritrea’s port of Assab during Ethiopia’s war against Eritrea from 1998-2000) Ethiopia has been forced to import 90% of its fuel and food from.
Djibouti hosts the United States’ only permanent military base in Africa, called Camp Lemonnier, a hub for the US spying network and counter-terrorism operations in Africa.
Although Djibouti, a haven of political stability in a turbulent region, has plenty of foreign bases, it is Beijing’s growing presence in the country that has Pentagon hawks on edge.
Several US allies, including Italy, Germany, Spain, France and Japan, also have a military presence at the Horn of Africa with an aim of preserving the existing US-led world order.
In 2017, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (China’s armed forces) opened its first overseas support base in Djibouti, nearly 10 kilometres away from Lemonnier.
Djibouti, located at the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the gateway of the Suez Canal – through which 10 per cent of the world’s oil exports and 20 per cent of all commercial goods travel, is at the forefront of that plan.
“Many countries want to have a base in Djibouti to monitor and protect shipping in that area. The Gulf of Aden/Red Sea is a critical water space, through which a significant amount of global merchant shipping passes,” said Timothy Heath, senior international defence research analyst at Rand Corporation.
China has been involved in peacekeeping missions in the region, but has also sought to show power in an effort to check the West’s influence while serving its own interests.
“The base has seen some non-peacekeeping-related activities that demonstrate China’s interest in improving its combat capabilities,” said Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies.