The US government plans to renovate the Maritime Operations Center, Antsiranana Naval Base, in Madagascar. Apparently the infrastructure at the naval base is in a poor state and a private contractor is being marshaled by the Pentagon (US Navy’s engineering department) to “renew the infrastructure and build a navigational operations center, which will include a personnel training center”. The proposed refurbishing has been necessitated by at least three important developments.

First, the traffic disruption in Suez Canal in March last year triggered a thinking to identify another ‘safe shipping route’ for global traffic. ‘Ever Given’, a container vessel ran aground in the Suez Canal and blocked global maritime traffic for nearly a week causing disruption in supply chains and huge economic losses given that on an average 50 ships pass daily through the 120-mile long accounting for nearly 12% of global trade. This led to an increased importance of the 1,600 kilometers long and 419 kilometers wide Mozambique Channel, located midway between Madagascar and Mozambique, as an alternate route between Asia and Europe-North America by circumnavigating Africa. The upgraded Diego Suarez naval base would thus provide Madagascar with requisite capacities to ensure that its waters are safe.

Second, during the last two years, several vessels and smaller craft carrying guns and narcotics (heroin) have been successfully intercepted in the north Arabian Sea by the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), a 33-nation maritime partnership that operates in the northern Indian Ocean. The estimate value of various kinds of illegal drugs seized between October 2020 and March 2021 has been about US$ 30 million worth. These heroin shipments originate from Afghanistan-Pakistan and the ‘southern route’ involving East and southern Africa is popular with smugglers for shipments that are bound for markets in Europe and the United States. These are “fuelling Madagascar’s emergence as a ‘plaque tournante’ 1 – a turning point in regional, and to a lesser extent global, drug trafficking routes”. Consequently, the drug problem in Madagascar waters, primarily as a transit destination for heroin, is quite acute. Interestingly, Madagascar also lies on the cocaine route i.e. consignments originating from Latin American (Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil) arrive via East and southern African countries.

The Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre based in Madagascar has noted that the national maritime domain awareness is weak and the current naval or coastguard capability is inadequate to monitor “Madagascar’s 5,000 kilometer shoreline peppered by informal ports and landing points”. Furthermore, according to Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime report (2021), Madagascar’s “emergence as a significant drugs transshipment hub has received limited attention to date”. This is further compounded by the fact that Madagascar has suffered two successive disasters i.e. the climate induced 2021 drought, Cyclone Idai and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic causing economic recession and social disruption. Under the circumstances, the stated purpose of upgrading the naval base is laudable and is part of US’ strategy to build capacities of smaller and poor African states such as Madagascar.

Third, Chinese infrastructure developments along the east coast of Africa is a significant issue and loom large in US naval thinking. China has made investments in maritime infrastructure (particularly in ports) in east Africa as a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Under the 2018 Summit declaration of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Beijing pledged US$ 60 billion in Africa. Likewise the 2019-2021 Action Plan identifies Africa as an important partner in the BRI.

The US concerns also emerge in the back drop of the Chinese naval investments in Port of Djibouti which has now emerged as an advanced naval base and can support forward deployment of PLA Navy ships for operations in the Red Sea-western Indian Ocean. The port is at the centre of strategic competition between US and China who have military/naval presence in the country along with France and Japan with limited stakes. Similarly, Tanzania's Bagamoyo port overlooks the Mozambique Channel and is strategically important. It can serve China’s strategic interests of monitoring the shipping traffic through the waterway; besides it can also serve as a naval facility to provide support to the PLA Navy.  

However, in recent times, there has been disenchantment over Chinese investments due to financial sustainability of the port projects. This has been caused by political imperative of showcasing China-Africa relations given that many projects under the BRI umbrella are financially unrealizable. For instance, in 2019, Tanzanian President John Magufuli accused China of “exploitative and awkward” terms for the project including “a guarantee of 33 years and a lease of 99 years”. In Kenya, the rail link connecting Mombasa port has fallen to the Chinese debt trap having defaulted on its payment. Furthermore, many governments are refusing to provide details of contracts due to the confidentiality clause; according to a report, of the 100 Chinese contracts (signed between 2000 and 2020) with 24 developing countries including 11 from Africa, the confidentiality contract preclude sharing details about the documents. In this context, a ‘Quad Plus G7’ partnership, pivoting on “Build Back Better World” (B3W), can be forged to deliver values-driven, high-standard, transparent, resilient and sustainable infrastructure in Africa.

Dr Vijay Sakhuja is Consultant Kalinga International Foundation, New Delhi.