The Challenges of Finding Political Treasure in Chinese Overseas Ports

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Executive Director of the Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations, recently published a piece in The Diplomat that represents the 3^rd in a 4-part look at China’s presence in overseas ports.  This piece emphasizes the economic impact of China’s participation in ports abroad, which also constitutes a political issue given the potential for economic consequences to shape host/participant country political ties with others.  The piece enumerates various economic gains countries hope to obtain by involving China in their ports.  It then details the actual economic results identified in a three-book series on Chinese overseas ports that examined Europe and the Americas, Southeast and South Asia, and Africa and the Middle East.  Chinese involvement was routinely associated with enhanced port performance and job creation/preservation, but not regularly associated with wider economic gains.  Of note, many Chinese projects do not come to fruition or mirror their original designs.  Moreover, China’s ports presence also is correlated with negative economic externalities.  The punch line is that the net benefit of China’s ports footprint may be smaller than posited or negative in which case political effect will be quite different from what many commentators presume.

The Op-Ed appears as Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, “The Challenges of Finding Political Treasure in Chinese Overseas Ports,” The Diplomat, September 16, 2026, https://thediplomat.com/2026/09/the-challenges-of-finding-political-treasure-in-chinese-overseas-ports.  Copyright remains with the original holder.