In a bid to bolster its position as a maritime powerhouse, secure key supply chains, enhance its international trade capacities, and build up geo-economic leverage, China has been buying up the development and operational rights to a chain of ports that stretch from the southern realms of Asia to the Middle East, Africa, Europe and even South America.
While big Chinese state-owned firms began acquiring ports around the world rather quietly roughly a decade or so ago, now, under the strategic framework of what has been dubbed the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR)—the watery part of the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—these acquisitions have taken on a booming significance as this inter-continental network begins to take shape.
