One of the primary objectives of the “Belt and Road Initiative” is to aid China’s transformation from a continental power to a maritime power. Much of Beijing’s investment activities around the world are consistent with that objective. India has already made its concerns about China’s plan for a line of Indian Ocean ports – the so-called
string of pearls – clear to the international community. But Beijing’s investments in ports have stretched well beyond that.
Chinese interest in global ports is consistent with Beijing’s desire to tilt the global economic playing field in its favour, and promote the normalisation of commercial processes and standards preferred by the Chinese. For, another purpose of the belt and road plan is to bind consumer markets to Chinese exporters through its physical, financial and digital networks, which all lead back to China.
This is perhaps best illustrated by China’s port buying spree in recent years in Europe. In nominal terms, the European Union is the second-largest economy in the world, constituting about 22 per cent of global GDP. Europe will remain the most important destination for finished goods along the plan’s trade routes for the foreseeable future. For the
“Made in China 2025” policy to succeed, Beijing must draw Europe into the Chinese economic orbit through the belt and road plan.
It is estimated that the Chinese state has at least a 10 per cent equity stake in ports throughout Europe (including in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain), and a growing investment portfolio of at least 40 ports in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. Beijing’s sometimes stealthy approach to investing has resulted in a
35 per cent stake in the Euromax Terminal at Rotterdam, a 20 per cent stake in the Antwerp Gateway – Rotterdam and Antwerp are Europe’s two busiest ports – and 100 per cent ownership of Zeebrugge at Bruges, Belgium.
While China extracts its pound of flesh from Europe in return for essentially making the continent the centrepiece of the belt and road plan, it is worth adding, in fairness, that a number of European ports have benefited directly from Chinese investment. For example, when China’s Cosco Shipping sealed a deal to take over Greece’s Piraeus port in 2008, fewer than 900,000 containers passed through its facilities.
