Geopolitics and commercial seaports / By Olaf Merk

The relation between geopolitics and commercial seaports is relatively unexplored. Whereas the links between commercial seaports and economic, environmental and spatial development are well established, the geopolitical context is, oddly enough, absent from the large majority of port studies. Similarly, considerations about commercial seaports are fairly scarce in most works on geopolitics: ports form part of the instruments of economic statecraft, but are in most works only mentioned in passing. Yet, insights in such links would be urgently needed. The last decade has shown the emergence of state-owned companies – predominantly Chinese – gaining control over a large set of strategically located world ports, a development made official government policy with the formulation of the New Silk Road, one of the parts of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The official statements about this initiative are full of assurances about win-win collaboration, but many governments mi