Global powers vie for sway in ‘Singapore of Africa’
DJIBOUTI — Two fighter jets took off and roared over the Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport, a sprawling complex in this tiny African nation that is quickly becoming a strategic military and shipping outpost for the world.
Not far away, a massive U.S. flag waved over transport planes parked in front of America’s only permanent military base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, home to about 4,000 personnel.
Djibouti, an arid Horn of Africa nation with fewer than 1 million inhabitants, also has become a military outpost for China, France, Italy and Japan, with that nation’s first overseas base since World War II. Other powers including Saudi Arabia have expressed interest in the key location across the Bab el-Mandeb strait from the Arabian Peninsula and on one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors.
On the chaotic streets of what has been called the “Singapore of Africa,” the jostling between the United States and China for influence is plainly seen.
Before his firing by President Trump, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made a point of stopping in Djibouti on his Africa visit last month and noting its importance in the fight against the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab extremist group in neighboring Somalia and the Islamic State group in the region at large. The U.S. carries out drone missions in Somalia and Yemen from Djibouti.
China’s first overseas military base, which was manned last year, is just a few miles from the U.S. one. The head of the U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, this year predicted that “there will be more.”
China’s economic interest is strong as well, with Djibouti borrowing up to $957 million from the Export-Import Bank of China to finance several projects in recent years, according to the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. The Chinese built a new electrified rail line that links the capital of neighboring Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and one of its strongest economies, with Djibouti as the nation aims to become a global shipping power.
“We sit on two of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. We are servicing the wider region, including some of the world’s fastest-growing economies,” the chairman of the Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority, Aboubaker Omar Hadi, said in an interview.
He called Djibouti, a largely Muslim nation, a model of stability in an otherwise volatile region. It is also one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, with the World Bank projecting 7 percent growth this year.
Djibouti is currently investing $15 billion in local infrastructure projects that connect the region to global trade routes, including the expansion of ports, improved road and rail links and new airports, according to official figures.