China’s rapid construction of ports in Africa has become its latest tool of influence, in the wake of rising scramble for trade, investment and mineral resource opportunities by the world’s economic powers.

 

Beijing’s fingerprints are seen on these inlets from Kenya, Tanzania to Djibouti on the eastern African coast, with at least 17 recent port projects undertaken by Chinese companies in Africa.

They include Mombasa, Lamu ports in Kenya, Doraleh in Djibouti, Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Bagamoyo, Mtwara in Tanzania, and Port Sudan and Sheikh Ibrahim in Sudan. 

Beijing’s presence in Africa, overall, included nearly a third of 231 active commercial ports in the continent’s maritime trade hubs, according to the latest report by Nigeria's leading geopolitical research firm SBM Intelligence.

Data shows Beijing either financed, built, has a stake or controls operations of some 40 trade ports in Africa. They recently built the Lamu port, control operations in Djibouti and are potential contenders when Mombasa eventually privatises operations (a tender is pending to privatise six berths in Mombasa and the three in second commercial port in Lamu).

While governments largely retain land ownership, operational control has moved to private and foreign players, reflecting the scale of investment and expertise required to modernise trade infrastructure.

Now economists say this could push the trade volume beyond the $348 billion recorded last year with African countries, even though China’s lending to the continent has been dropping.“The bigger picture is that the port developments fall broadly within China's Belt and Road Initiative and also implementation of the country's five year plans has laid an emphasis on connectivity across the BRI,” said Churchill Ogutu, an economist at IC Asset managers in Nairobi.“So absolutely, China wants to have a greater say in the global trade. We have seen it shrugging off the US tariff, showing its resiliency in the production and supply chains. Development of ports, in the trade logistics sector, will further anchor its trade dominance and along the BRI nodes,” he added.

Seaports are specialised maritime or land hubs that act as primary entry and exit points for importing and exporting goods.

They function as crucial, strategic nodes for loading and unloading cargo, transshipment and connecting diverse markets through infrastructure like docks, container terminals, and storage facilities.

Some economists say China is looking at ports as a tool to maintain influence on Africa and that African ports matter to Beijing since they sit at the choke points of trade.“African ports matter to China for one simple reason. They sit at the choke points of trade,” says Irina Tsukerman, President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a geopolitical analyst and a human rights and national security lawyer based in New York and a Fellow at the Arabian Peninsula Institute.“Most African exports and imports still move by sea, and the fastest way to shape that flow is to shape the ports where cargo is cleared, stored, priced, and routed onward.”She argued that Beijing also sees ports as a tool to maintain influence, usually built through contracts rather than flags: Operating rights, long leases, and management roles create daily leverage.“The port operator has visibility into volumes, cargo patterns, and bottlenecks. The operator also builds relationships with customs, port authorities, trucking firms, and shipping agents,” she told The EastAfrican. Over time, this can shape how a country’s trade system works, which standards it adopts, which technology it uses, and which partners it trusts. Influence grows quietly through systems, not speeches.

Whether Beijing is using ports for its good is just one side of the story. The other bit, argued Dr Cavince Adhere, a China-Africa policy analyst in Nairobi, is that China was invited to solve a problem: bad ports or poor efficiency in the facilities.

For one, China’s focus on ports and related infrastructure was detailed in the 2021-2025 Five-Year Plan that talks about a “connectivity framework of six corridors, six routes, and multiple countries and ports” to advance Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a 2012 vision to improve trade infrastructure across corridors and countries China trades with.“The Chinese usually build things outside China based on the concurrence and request by receiving states. All the ports that China has built in Africa including the Lamu port are actually requests by these countries because they believe first of all that they need those assets for their own social economic and security advancement wherever it applies,” Dr Adhere told The EastAfrican.

The corridors identified by Beijing in the BRI touch on North Africa, eastern Africa with Kenya and Tanzania, Djibouti and Egypt, and Tunisia being central to the vision.

The port of Lamu was developed by the China Communications Construction Company. But Kenya then granted further contracts for the construction of link roads to the port and beyond, suggesting how related infrastructure play into the port vision.“The Chinese have played a key role in port development by building the standard gauge railway, expanding Mombasa port, and building Lamu port from scratch. In the region, China is revamping ports and other inland ports, which play a big role in decongesting main ports,” said Shippers Council for Eastern Africa Agayo Ogambi. It is a Chinese model that links the port to a wider package: industrial parks, special economic zones, power projects, and transport corridors, Tsukerman added.“That helps Chinese firms sell equipment, win construction contracts, and anchor long-term commercial relationships. It also helps China secure steady access to the commodities it buys at scale, including copper, cobalt, iron ore, bauxite, manganese, lithium, oil, and gas,” she said.

Kenya currently doesn’t have many of these minerals. But with ports as gateways, China knows its flow of goods from source in the hinterlands to the exit at Mombasa, for instance, is assured if they play a role.

The standard gauge railway they want to extend from Mombasa-Nairobi to Kampala can help reduce delays, add capacity, and connect a port to roads, rail, warehouses, and industrial zones, lowering the delivery costs, experts argue.

Indeed, the trade volume of $348 billion in 2025, marked a 17.7 percent growth over the previous year. China’s trade volumes have risen nearly every year for the last two decades, even though the balance favours Beijing.

China’s exports to Africa reached $225 billion, while imports from Africa were $123 billion, leading to a 64.5 percent surge in Africa's trade deficit.

Last year (2025), China announced the expansion of its preferential access for African nations, extending its zero-tariff policy for least developed countries to all African countries, except for eSwatini (which still maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan).

The policy eliminates all tariffs on Chinese imports originating from Africa, a measure that—in principle—could deepen economic ties between China and Africa by granting African exports greater access to the Chinese market. These countries, such as Kenya, must negotiate separate bilateral agreements, however.

So, by building or running Africa’s ports, China is trying to reduce uncertainty and increase bargaining power. Managing key terminals offer Chinese exporters and importers smoother logistics and predictable turnaround times.

They can also prioritise integration with Chinese shipping networks, insurers, financiers, and digital logistics platforms, economists argue.

Prof XN Iraki of the University of Nairobi’s Faculty of Business and Management Sciences says building and controlling ports is effectively controlling trade.“China plays long game,” he told The EastAfrican. “You can’t control trade and its supply chains without good ports,” says Mr Iraki.“The next phase could be roads and rail, and it is building that too. Think of it; the US wants to shift from aid to trade, Beijing is ahead on that. Control ports you control trade. Which trade does not pass through ports? China gets more leverage from the fact that ports are capital intensive, hence little competition. With ports ready, getting goods through them is easier; China is the workshop of the world. We have lots of raw materials. China knows that with AI or not, there shall always be physical goods,” Iraki said.

China’s ports drive has been giving the US a headache. According to Kit Conklin, a former Senior Advisor on the US House Select Committee on China, the port infrastructure is a long-term route for China to secure supply.“These ports serve as critical nodes for exporting Chinese manufactured goods to growing African markets and, conversely, securing the flow of vital commodities (like critical minerals and energy resources) back to China,” says Mr Conklin.

But by picking strategic ports across all corner of the continent, China now knows all entry points are secured.“China strategically has opted to have the key strategic ports in Africa as a way of exercising its influence in trade and equally using the ports as entry and exit of respective goods and services both from China and the rest of African region,” said Prof Samuel Nyandemo from the University of Nairobi’s School of Economics.“Besides it's a sure way of stamping its authority and influence within the region for some time to come. Remember some of the contractual obligations are long-term.”Ports may be expensive deals but offer Beijing some cover of goodness. Ken Gichinga, a chief economist at Mentoria Economics, estimated that China gains nearly 13 times in trade revenues for every $1 invested in ports.

China provided significant loans to Africa, totaling over $180 billion from 2000-2024 primarily for infrastructure (transport, energy, ICT), with major recipients including Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria.

However, lending dropped sharply in 2024 as Beijing shifted to a more selective, risk-averse approach focused on established partners and profit, while still committing new funds through initiatives such as Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

Concerns persist over debt sustainability, transparency, and governance, even as China remains a key player in African development financing.

“China has received some criticism for the way it has approached African government efforts to restructure debt.“China got burned a bit on buying African debt, and now prefers channelling its capital through industrial investments,” said Jacques Nel, Head of Africa Macro at Oxford Economics Africa, referring to Chinese government’s resolve to move away from African debt towards tangible investments, and its desire to secure trade nodes as part of its export-orientated growth strategy.“Africa has vast amounts of natural resources as well as people. That makes it attractive from a trade perspective. Developing and securing transport networks to secure access to that potential sounds like a sensible investment,” says Mr Nel.

China’s development financing in Africa since 2013 reached $160 billion. And Beijing has channelled approximately $50 billion into African port infrastructure, a staggering investment that dwarfs Western commitments to the continent.

Some African countries have played along. Tanzania, for instance, has worked with China to repair a crucial railway line that links the port of Dar to copper belt in Zambia. Tanzania has also been building a crucial corridor into the Democratic Republic of Congo, where China has massive interests in minerals.

China’s port development strategy has also linked Africa’s 16 landlocked countries via Chinese-built inland transport infrastructure, which helps get goods and resources to market and vice versa lending credence to international trade.“Countries don’t build roads for their own use. Kenya uses Mombasa but its gateway to interaction with other countries. That is the same situation where China finds itself with these countries when they want for example to do business with these countries,” said Dr Adhere.“It may look like Chinese driven but sort of looks like country driven. However, the Chinese capability is usually matched with the African needs including the port construction sector.”China’s port developments are concentrated in 32 African countries. West Africa has 35, compared to 17 in East Africa, 15 in Southern Africa and 11 in North Africa, according to one assessment by Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS).

By comparison, Latin America and the Caribbean host 10 Chinese-built or operated ports. Asian countries host 24.

According to a report published on last year by ACSS, Chinese state-owned companies are involved in ports as financiers, builders, or operators, as part of Beijing's broader strategy to boost trade flows and advance its geopolitical ambitions.

© Copyright 2026 Nation Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).