TENSIONS IN THE RED SEA |DI S PAT CHE S US in goods through the Red Sea area annually. By comparison, the amount of goods moving though the South China Sea is estimated at about 30 per cent of global trade — about $5 trillion US in value. While trade through the Red Sea is less significant than trade going through the South China Sea, it is still very substantial, impacting Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
of “debt traps” and have called China a “predatory lender.” China’s military presence in the region began with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) anti-piracy patrols off the Horn of Africa, in the Gulf of Aden and on the Somali coast in 2008. Participating in these United Nations counter-piracy activities has boosted PLAN’s ability to
patrols in the Gulf of Aden and nearby PLA peacekeeping operations — as well as humanitarian activities. Opened in August 2017, the PLAN Djibouti Support Base received a brigade of PLAN marines and six armoured personnel carriers, with the first live-fire exercises the following month. In May 2018, construction began on a large-scale pier
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China’s interest in Djibouti
Since the 1990s, the Chinese government in Beijing has been pursuing a mixed “great power” strategy of economic engagement and military outreach to Africa. Commercially, Beijing encouraged Chinese construction companies and financial lenders to go global as part of the country’s efforts to acquire greater access to natural resources — minerals, oil and food supplies — by doing more business overseas. Similarly, Chinese port management companies have contracted to handle African ports with high-volume turnover. China’s growing economic power can be seen in its presence in the tiny but strategic port country of Djibouti. Here, on the tip of the Horn of Africa, China has demonstrated a vital portion of its strategically planned Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), foreign direct investment and overseas defence spending — all of which will increase its influence abroad, both in hard and soft power. Its BRI infrastructure projects seek to revive historical overland and maritime trade routes through a massive rail and maritime network that is made up of $1 trillion US in investments across Asia and Europe. Djibouti has become the western point of President Xi Jinping’s BRI and a key entry point for Chinese economic and commercial interests in Africa. China has pursued a number of BRI projects in Djibouti. The largest is the $590-million US Doraleh Multipurpose Port funded by a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. This new port facility west of the Port of Djibouti has terminals for handling oil, bulk cargo and containers — all of which have direct access to the new Addis Ababa-Djibouti Electric Railway, which provides landlocked Ethiopia with railroad access to the Red Sea and which also secured its funding through a loan from the Export-Import Bank. And there are plans for a natural gas pipeline from the port up to the Ethiopian highlands, to be funded by a BRI loan. Meanwhile, China’s ambitious BRI mega-projects elsewhere in Southeast Asia have incurred high price tags, leading to heavy debt loads. Observers have warned diplomat and international canada
The Red Sea is a major global transit route for petroleum and refined oil products from the Middle East and Persian Gulf as well as manufactured goods from South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia coming to Europe and North America.
convoy Chinese oil tankers and commercial vessels through these far seas and to deploy and improve PLAN expeditionary naval forces along international routes deemed vital to China’s economic and energy requirements. In addition, China has deployed 2,000 People’s Liberation Army peacekeepers to African operations in South Sudan and Darfur as well as Mali in West Africa and it currently contributes more than 10 per cent of the UN peacekeeping budget. These UN deployments improve its capacity to conduct “military operations other than war” and to train and test its military troops and equipment in Africa and elsewhere. Beside the Doraleh Multipurpose Port, China and the Djibouti government have negotiated a “strategic support base” (a military base by another name) to stage, support and re-supply PLAN anti-piracy
— estimated at more than 330 metres in length — on the harbour side of the base. The Chinese military base is only a few kilometres from the American, French and Japanese bases in Djibouti. The U.S. base, Camp Lemonnier, is the only permanent American military facility on the African continent and acts as a hub for U.S. counter-terror operations. This closeness has led to concerns about possible friction or even confrontations between the foreign military forces. In recent months, American military pilots flying near or to the U.S. base have complained that laser beams have been directed at their aircraft cockpits from the vicinity of the Chinese base — though Chinese authorities have denied such dangerous activities. Interestingly, a Chinese action war film, Operation Red Sea, directed by Dante Lam, was released in January 2018 and 75