With a total of 231 existing commercial ports in Africa, Chinese companies are present in over a quarter of the continent’s maritime hubs, being active shareholders of 78 ports in 32 countries. This is highlighted in its latest study by the Center for Strategic Studies on Africa, an institute affiliated with the United States Department of Defense, specialized in research focused on security and geopolitics. According to the study, Chinese state-owned companies are active shareholders of around 78 ports as builders, financiers or direct operators, with a predilection for terminals in West Africa (35 ports), followed by the East (17), South (15) and North (11) coasts. This is, the experts note, a much more widespread presence than that of other regions: by comparison, Asia is home to 24 ports built or managed by China, Latin America and the Caribbean ten.

In some African ports, Chinese firms dominate the entire port development enterprise, from finance to construction, operations and share ownership. Large conglomerates such as China Communications Construction Corporation (CCCC) have been awarded work as prime contractors, later awarding subcontracts to subsidiaries such as China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC). This is the case at Nigeria’s Lekki port, one of the busiest in West Africa, where CHEC carried out the design and construction work after obtaining a loan from the China Development Bank (CDB), ultimately acquiring a 54 percent financial stake in the port, which it operates under a 16-year lease. In addition to Lekki, in West Africa, Chinese firms hold more than 50 percent stakes in the Kribi terminal in Cameroon (66 percent) and the Lomé terminal in Togo (50 percent).

This is the context in which Beijing’s broader development plan for global connectivity, articulated along six corridors, as many routes and various ports and countries in the world, fits in: this is the New Silk Road Initiative (Belt and Road Initiative, BRI), a project from which Italy withdrew at the end of 2023 but which continues to represent a strategic project of primary importance for China, and an opportunity that is difficult to ignore for Africa. Three of the six corridors in the Chinese plan cross the continent, landing in East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania), in the Egyptian Suez region and in Tunisia. A factor that confirms, once again, the central role that the African continent plays in Beijing’s global ambitions. The BRI five-year plan (2021-2025), moreover, underlines the desire to transform China into “a strong maritime country”, part of a broader rejuvenation as a “Great Power” with “strategic strengths abroad”. In developing the New Silk Road, Beijing also plans to connect new trade corridors and 16 landlocked African countries to ports, as a strategy to tap into new markets.

The study also focuses on the territorial power implications of managing operating leases or port concessions to China. Through its companies, Beijing holds operating concessions in 10 African ports, ensuring strategic control of access. In addition to the financial benefits of maritime activities, the port operator determines the assignment of docks, accepts or denies port calls, and can offer preferential rates and services for its nation’s ships and cargo. Control of port operations by an external actor – the report’s speakers note – therefore raises concerns in terms of sovereignty and security, a reason that has prompted some countries to prohibit management by foreign port operators. Despite the risks of loss of control, however, the trend in Africa is to privatize port operations to improve efficiency. Among the risks associated with port management entrusted to external actors is that of logistical support for military activities. Djibouti’s Doraleh port, for example, which Beijing had promoted for years with purely commercial purposes, was expanded to accommodate a naval facility in 2017. Since that year, the small Horn of Africa country has hosted China’s first overseas military base, a model that some say could be replicated elsewhere on the continent.

The growing presence of Chinese companies in African ports inevitably also promotes Beijing’s military objectives. In 36 of the 78 port sites in which Chinese companies are involved – over 46 percent of the total – ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy can dock. This is the case of the ports of Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Gentil (Gabon), Casablanca (Morocco), Tamatave (Madagascar), Maputo (Mozambique), Tincan (Nigeria), Pointe-Noire (Republic of Congo), Victoria (Seychelles), Durban and Simon’s Town (South Africa). Some of these ports, the report further specifies, have also been departure bases for military exercises of the People’s Liberation Army over the years. These include the ports of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Lagos (Nigeria), Durban (South Africa) and Doraleh (Djibouti). The latter involved exercises with Ethiopia, a country that has been landlocked since gaining independence from neighboring Eritrea (1993) and is pursuing an aggressive political campaign to regain it.

Chinese troops have also used naval and land facilities for some of their exercises, including the Kigamboni Naval Base in Tanzania, the Mapinga Comprehensive Military Training Center, and the Ngerengere Air Base, all built by Chinese companies. The Awash Arba War Technical School served a similar purpose in Ethiopia, as did bases in other countries. In total, the People’s Liberation Army has conducted 2000 port calls and 55 bilateral and multilateral military exercises in Africa since 19, according to the U.S. think tank. A presence that extends, in addition to direct military engagements, to the management of military logistics. One case among many is that of the Chinese state-owned company Hutchison Ports, a group that holds a 38-year concession from the Egyptian Navy to operate a terminal at the Abu Qir naval base, northeast of Alexandria.