CHINA WATCHTracking China’s Control of Overseas Ports
China has become the world’s largest trading country and second-largest economy, and conducts about 95 percent of its international trade through sea-lanes. As of September 2023, China has signed seventy bilateral and regional shipping agreements with sixty-six countries and regions. Today, China’s shipping routes and service networks cover major countries and regions worldwide.
The China Overseas Ports interactive visualizes degrees of China’s overseas port ownership by types of investment across regions and time. It also evaluates the dual-use (commercial and military) potential of ports owned, constructed, or operated by Chinese entities.
The database supporting this interactive includes 101 port projects of which Chinese entities have acquired varied equity ownership or operational stakes. China operates or has ownership in at least one port in every continent except Antarctica. Of the 101 projects, 92 are active, whereas the remaining 9 port projects have become inactive due to cancellation or suspension by the end of September 2023. Reasons for cancellation or suspension include environmental concerns, souring of political relations, financial problems, and security issues raised domestically and internationally. Suspended projects, such as China’s construction of the Khalifa Port in the United Arab Emirates, could resume construction.
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China’s Port Projects in Numbers
· 92 Port projects total (port projects outside China with Chinese investment)
· 13 Port projects with majority Chinese ownership
· 10 Port projects with majority Chinese ownership where there is physical potential for naval use
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China has become the world’s largest trading country and second-largest economy, and conducts about 95 percent of its international trade through sea-lanes. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 and the introduction of the Twenty-First Century Maritime Silk Road, which connects China to Europe and the Arctic Ocean via the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, have supercharged China’s overseas port investment and construction activities. President Xi has personally emphasized the importance of ports for economic development. When visiting Tieshan Port in Guangxi Province in April 2017, Xi highlighted the importance of ports in economic development: “We often say that to get rich we must first build roads; but in coastal areas, to get rich we must also first build ports.”
In Which Countries Is China Investing?
As of September 2023, China has signed seventy bilateral and regional shipping agreements with sixty-six countries and regions. Today, China’s shipping routes and service networks cover major countries and regions worldwide. Although China is not yet a global naval power and currently has limited overseas naval bases, it has become a leading commercial power that wields significant geoeconomic influence over international sea-lanes and commercial ports underpinning the global flow of goods.
