Akshan Ranjan and Khushnuma Alam
The Indian Ocean and Red Sea is subject to witness increasing intensified rivalry and owing to this Africa’s maritime topography has assumed increased strategic importance. The recent Chinese investments in ports across key nations of East Africa such as Tanzania, Kenya and Djibouti are often depicted as precursors to military installations abroad or covert power projection.
However, these concerns are justified but they risk neglecting a more consequential reality. Comparatively, a more subdued form of maritime statecraft is reflected by China’s outlook to African ports. Instead of depending totally upon the overt coercive forces China assembles its influence via integration of logistics, commercial connectivity and the development of the infrastructure. Countries of East Africa present an interesting case of China gaining strategic benefits that function below the threshold of formal securitisation process by integrating itself into Africa’s political economy of transportation and commerce, ultimately affecting and reshaping the larger maritime order.
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