China Hopes to Dominate Africa by Boosting Trade Via Indian Ocean
People’s Republic of China (PRC) officials are becoming increasingly apprehensive about the rise in the use of the westward corridor to export oil, diamonds, and rare minerals out of South Sudan and the Central African Republic via Cameroon. In other words, this creates a flow to Atlantic sea and air transportation routes, rather than routes eastward to Indian Ocean trade routes.
Beijing is also concerned over the growing tension between Sudan and its neighbors — particularly South Sudan — because of the impact this might have on the PRC’s long-term designs to dominate Africa’s resources trade.
A key component of the Chinese long-term strategy has long been to converge all the flow of oil, gas, and minerals to a single export point on the shores of the Indian Ocean; that is, in the direction of China. This vision is getting closer to realization given the progress made toward beginning construction of the maritime complex in Lamu on the northern Kenyan shores of the Indian Ocean. The Lamu mega-port and adjacent industrial and transportation complexes are a major element of the Kenyan Government’s Vision 2030 initiative. Lamu is the key to the long-needed modernization of Kenya’s deteriorating infrastructure and boosting of economic output.
Although Nairobi keeps insisting that there will be international tenders for each and every phase of the Lamu project, the overall design in fact follows Beijing’s proposal, and Nairobi acknowledges that no international consortium has so far been able to remotely compete with the financial guarantees offered by official Beijing in support for proposals presented by Chinese entrants. This is because Beijing considers the Lamu mega-port and transportation complex to be the key to the PRC’s long term domination over African trade and resources.
The initial costs of the first phase of the Lamu project are estimated at $25.5-billion. The name of this first phase — the Lamu Port and New Transport Corridor Development to Southern Sudan and Ethiopia (LAPSSET) — points to the initial objectives. Significantly, the term used is “Southern Sudan” and not the state of South Sudan. When completed, the first phase of the Lamu complex will include a 32-berth port, three international airports, and a 1,500km railway line. As well, the Chinese plan oil pipelines from Juba in South Sudan, and from Addis Ababa via Moyale, Kenya, to converge into Kenya’s Eastern Province and end in a new huge oil refinery in Bargoni, near Lamu.
The entire construction and pipelines will be supported by a 1,730km road network. In the longer term, the trans-African pipelines the Chinese plan on building from both Nigeria in the west and south-western Africa (most likely Angola) will also feed into the Lamu complex, thus giving the PRC effective control over the main hydrocarbon exports of Africa.
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