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Amid brewing diplomatic storm in the Red Sea, China is unlikely to take sides
Analysts say Beijing is expected to stay out of a row over a controversial port deal between Ethiopia and Somaliland.
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China set to stay on neutral ground as a Red Sea storm brews over Ethiopia’s port deal with Somaliland
- A deal between landlocked Ethiopia and the self-declared state of Somaliland for port access has caused ructions in East Africa
- As China has ties with Ethiopia and Somalia, which has already repealed Somaliland’s deal, analysts expect Beijing to stay out of the row
Landlocked Ethiopia made the deal at the start of the year with the self-declared state of Somaliland, giving the East African nation access to its ports in return for officially recognising it as an independent country.
Somaliland proclaimed its independence in 1991, but since then it has not been recognised by any other country. Somali capital Mogadishu continues to consider the region part of northern Somalia.
This deal would make Ethiopia the first nation to recognise the breakaway state.
China views Somaliland as part of Somalia’s territory and an internal matter. However, Beijing has been apprehensive of growing ties between Somaliland and Taiwan since 2020, when they set up representative offices.
“China supports the federal government of Somalia in safeguarding national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Thursday.
“Meanwhile, we hope that regional countries will handle regional affairs well through dialogue and achieve common development by having friendly cooperation.”
But China also has close ties with Ethiopia – and analysts have said Beijing is unlikely to criticise it over the controversy.
The row began on January 1, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi announced in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa that they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) granting naval and commercial access to ports along Somaliland’s coast, on lease to Ethiopia for 50 years. In return, the deal “includes provisions which state that the Ethiopian government will recognise Somaliland”.
Mogadishu called the deal an “illegal infringement of Ethiopia into our national sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has since signed a law repealing the MOU.
Ethiopia is one of Beijing’s major allies in the Horn of Africa region – an area where China has vast economic interests.
China funded and built the US$4.5 billion Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as the Addis Ababa light rail.
In neighbouring Djibouti, China opened its first overseas military base in 2017, and has invested heavily in the country’s maritime industry.
Chinese companies have fishing interests in Somalia and Beijing has also been at the forefront of fighting piracy, with two frigates and a supply ship permanently stationed there on duty in Somali waters.
Guled Ahmed, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute (MEI) who is from Mogadishu, said China was being cautious about the deal between Ethiopia and Somaliland and it was possible it would not respond to the matter at all.
“It has huge investments and stronger ties with Ethiopia than Somalia,” Ahmed said.
He noted that nobody knows if the Somaliland government will continue its diplomatic relationship with Taiwan or not, “while the Biden administration has given a cold shoulder to a Somaliland and Taiwan alliance”.
“The future of the Somaliland and Taiwan relationship is uncertain,” Ahmed said.
Ethiopia deal with breakaway region sparks row with Somalia
David Shinn, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington and former US ambassador to Addis Ababa, agreed Beijing was unlikely to censure its African ally.“China has close ties with Ethiopia and will be reluctant to criticise Addis Ababa over this deal with Somaliland,” he said.
China had minimal economic and political interests in Somalia, Shinn said, though it did have an embassy in Mogadishu, supported Somalia unity and wanted to prevent the resurgence of Somali piracy.
He also said it was important to watch what happened with the relationship between Taiwan and Somaliland.
“China opposed the exchange of offices between Taiwan and Somaliland and will become more critical if these ties take on greater political significance,” Shinn said.
In 2020, when Taiwan opened a representative office in Somaliland capital Hargeisa while Somaliland opened a similar office in Taipei, Beijing “condemned Taiwan for undermining Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Beijing views Taiwan as part of China which must be reunited, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to arm Taiwan.
In Africa, only Eswatini – previously Swaziland – recognises Taipei.
According to Seifudein Adem, an Ethiopian global affairs professor at Doshisha University in Japan, China will seek to avoid overtly backing either side.
However, he said China would prefer it if Somaliland joined the community of nations, it was finally recognised as a legitimate state by the international community, and it cut off its diplomatic relations with Taiwan in due course.
“Otherwise, for the time being, China will seek to avoid the matter altogether,” Adem said.
This is largely because China would not want to jeopardise its interests by taking sides. Beijing’s stakes in the Indian Ocean run deep. According to Joshua Meservey, a senior fellow at Washington’s Hudson Institute who focuses on great power competition in Africa, Beijing is keen to project power there in keeping with its image as a major global power, to pressure its perennial adversary India, and to protect the sea lines of communication which are vital maritime trading routes.
“China has strengthened ties with Somalia recently, but the latter is so dysfunctional that it limits what Beijing can accomplish there,” Meservey said.
He added that China had already tried to induce Somaliland away from its ties with Taiwan, “though I think the Somalilanders understand that China will never recognise its independence because of the Taiwan issue”.
He said he believed that China would strongly support Mogadishu diplomatically in the current row.
“It’s not implausible that Beijing might also surreptitiously lend what support it can to any mischief that Mogadishu may try to stir in Somaliland in retaliation,” he said.
While there is little likelihood of Beijing recognising Somaliland, in the US there has been a growing push by some in Congress and the Senate to do so in return for access to the port at Berbera as an alternative to America’s military base in Djibouti.
