The EconomistFebruary 8th 2020 Special reportChina’s Belt and Road 71N
o chinese referenceto the maritime Silk Road is complete
without mention of the voyages of Zheng He. The eunuch ad-
miral, a Muslim at the Ming court, led seven voyages in the early
15th century in a fleet of vast sailing barges known as “treasure
ships”. The official narrative is that he went abroad to spread peace,
carrying treasures for the potentates he would meet from South-
East Asia to east Africa. Back came fabulous curiosities, including
a giraffe, which he fashioned as tribute to the emperor. The peace-
ful nature of Zheng’s trips is greatly embellished—the fleet was
well armed and got into scuffles. But few tales better show the mix
of hard power and emoluments that embodied imperial China’s
tributary relations with others. Barbarians were worthy of engage-
ment if they accepted China’s cultural and military superiority and
moved into China’s orbit.
The idea of emissaries bringing peace lingers on in schematic
maps of the 21st-century maritime Silk Road. What jumps out is
how vague and imprecise are these doodles of desire. The routes
themselves chart sinuous curves. The waypoints speak more to ex-
otic places from the old spice trade than to where concrete is being
poured (no mention of a military base in Djibouti, for instance).
The lines copied out in the Pentagon, by contrast, are harder and
firmer. American strategists believe China is sending out modern
treasure fleets laden with goodies, such as offers to build ports,
that will pave the way for deploying warships in future.
China downplays such notions. Yet it is rarely easy for observ-
ers to separate the commercial from the
strategic along the maritime road. Nearly
everything, potentially, can be used to
make money and project power.
The road starts by coursing innocently
through the South China Sea. Already the
paradox is glaring. This is a seat of height-
ened geopolitical contest on account of
disputes among littoral states over mari-
time claims in the sea—none more hyber-
bolic than China’s. It is aggressively assert-
ing its claims (and disregarding others’),
through a large naval, coastguard and fish-
ing-fleet presence, as well as huge terra-
forming around reefs and rocks to create
runways, quays and military bases.
The approach is at odds with protesta-
tions of peace and mutual co-operation
embodied in the bri. But the contradiction
is resolved if you consider that by enmesh-
ing neighbours in ports and other projects,
and by increasingly dominating the sea
lanes with Chinese vessels, China hopes to
settle the matter of sovereignty by giving
neighbours little choice but to be drawn
into its embrace.
So far, most Chinese investment has
gone into commercial ports. The maritime
push is being led by a handful of giant state
enterprises with close links to the Com-munist Party’s leaders. China Communications Construction
Company (cccc) is the biggest company on the belt and road.
cosco, a shipping behemoth, is the world’s third-biggest contain-
er line and has investments in 61 port terminals around the world.
China Merchants, founded as a patriotic enterprise in 1872 to at-
tract Chinese capital to take on Western shipping lines, manages
36 ports in 18 countries. Since 2010 well over $20bn of Chinese
money has been poured into foreign ports.
One dimension is the “port-park-city” concept: a port is more
likely to thrive with a hinterland in the form of industrial zones
and a growing city. Following the model are Kuantan on peninsu-
lar Malaysia’s east coast and Gwadar in Pakistan on the Arabian
Sea. In both places, Chinese-built industrial parks are going up
close to new port development, with plans for urban expansion. In
Colombo in Sri Lanka, next to the busy container port, controlled
by China Merchants, cccchas won 269 hectares from the sea to ex-
tend the business district and build glitzy flats. It is not clear
whether such projects are intended more for property speculation
by rich locals and Chinese keen to park money abroad, or organic
evolutions of an existing city’s fabric. The domestic reception of-
ten hangs on the answer.
Another plan is for major ports to serve as regional hubs at
which the biggest container ships can dock; their cargoes are then
unloaded and despatched on smaller vessels serving other region-
al ports. Colombo is one example. Sri Lanka sits at the crossroads
of major shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean, and Colombo is one
of the world’s busiest—and most profitable—container ports.
The most notable success of a hub port is cosco’s involvement
in Piraeus, Athens’s ancient harbour. China arrived when the fi-
nancial crisis of 2008 had brought Greece to its knees. coscotook a
long lease on two terminals of the container port with a promise to
build a third. Soon, the contrast in productivity between those and
the remaining Greek-run one, plagued by inefficiency and power-
ful unions, was stark. The left-wing government of the day had re-
fused the sale of that pier. But in 2016, needing funds demanded byA long game
At sea, commerce and strategy are hard to separateThe road