Great-Power Basing in Djibouti
China opened its first overseas military base at Djibouti in August 2017, a few miles from the largest American base in Africa. Djibouti is a country of about a million people with almost no natural resources, and its entire strategic value is its position — on the Bab el-Mandeb strait, through which something over ten per cent of world trade passes on its way to and from the Suez Canal. The United States has held Camp Lemonnier since 2002, a former French Foreign Legion post that became the hub of counterterrorism and drone operations across the Horn and Yemen, with some 4,000 personnel. France has been there since independence in 1977 and before. Japan opened its first overseas base since 1945 there in 2011, nominally for anti-piracy. Italy, and at various times Germany, Spain and Saudi Arabia, have facilities. The Chinese installation was announced as a logistics facility for anti-piracy and peacekeeping, and is a fortified base with underground structures, a berth capable of taking an aircraft carrier, and a garrison. Djibouti charges rent to all of them — reportedly around $63 million a year from the United States and a similar sum from China — which is a substantial share of its national budget. The arrangement is the clearest example of a small state monetising geography, and of great-power competition conducted through leases rather than conquest. American commanders have complained publicly about lasers directed at their pilots, and about the port concession Djibouti took from a Dubai operator and gave to a Chinese one.
- Year: 2017 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
