From Panama to Spain: China sharpens its maritime hegemony

Few more strategic enclaves than this passage: 82 kilometers that connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific to radically shorten maritime routes and through which 5% of world trade flows. China accumulates 21% of the load volume, only behind the United States, and in recent years it has increased its investment in the area. Two of the five adjoining ports, in addition, have been operated since 1997 by a subsidiary of the Hongkonés Hutchison Port Holdings conglomerate. Beyond that, there is no factual basis for accusations.

Now: in the-“stupid”, according to Trump– Torrijos-Carter treaties that delivered the channel from 1999, USA. The right to defend any threat to its neutrality was reserved. Marco Rubio was good to remember him on his visit to the country last weekend. During a meeting with President José Raúl Mulino, the new Secretary of State warned that “Chinese influence” is “unacceptable” and that, if not “immediate changes”, “the United States will take the necessary measures to protect their rights.” Said and done: this Friday Panama announced its withdrawal from the new Silk route, the expansionist Chinese Global Investment Program.

Patrio Pasotism

This caution against China’s involvement in critical infrastructure does not seem to have yet penetrated in Spain. Patria carefree benefits in particular the company Nutech, inspection equipment supplier and security systems for merchandise control in sensitive facilities, which have resorted to various public bodies – among them ports of the State, the Tax Agency, Adif or Aena – despite the growing international alert.

Although Nutech operates as a private entity, its links with state corporations imply an intimate involvement of the Chinese government. So much so that one of its first presidents was Huifeng, son of Hu Jintao, maximum leader from 2002 to 2012. The largest shareholder of Nuctech It is today Tsinghua Tongfang, controlled by the National Nuclear Corporation of China (CNNC), in turn dependent on the State Council. The US Department of Defense considers the CNNC as a military company, as it shares technology and advanced knowledge with the popular liberation army.

The authoritarian setback imposed by Xi Jinping has increased the involvement of the State in the private sector, drunk the distinction between them. Chinese companies lack legal mechanisms to ignore an order of the regime: the interests of the Communist Party are not subject to any norm. Xi himself made it clear when in a speech pronounced in 2023 he called private companies to contribute to the country’s strategic objectives. In that sense, Nuctech technology, capable of monitoring reserved information such as the Movement of goods, is an evident vulnerability in essential facilities, systems and services of other countries given the submission – organizational and mandatory – of the company.

The Nuctech scanner system inspects goods and controls security in port infrastructure. It is present in 26 of the 27 EU member states

The Chinese government has also promoted dozens of financing vehicles to accelerate, lowering, the development of dual use tools. This explains, in part, much lower prices than those of the competition, which have allowed Nutech to expand rapidly internationally. Although the firm does not disseminate specific data, specialized studies point out that it would have operational devices In 26 of the 27 countries Members of the European Union.

Among them is, of course, Spain. In mid -2022, the United States expressed through its embassy in Madrid some discomfort in the face of the acquisition of Nuctech technology by Spanish ports. It is no accident that that same season the Chinese company sponsored Algeciras CF, home of the second most important nautical installation in the country. In April of last year, the European Commission inspected the Regional Headquarters of Nuctech. Asked about the electronic correspondence of its employees, the entity said it was stored on the servers of the matrix on Chinese soil. Even so, just a month later Aena awarded a new contract worth 800,000 euros to Nutech and his Spanish subsidiary, Excel, for the installation of airport security mechanisms. Nutech has not responded to the request for statements required by ABC.

Naval power

The parallel discussions on the Channel and the Nutech technology – present in ports, airports and Panamanian border steps – constitute two concrete expressions of a broader strategy: the consolidation of China as maritime power. Throughout the last decade, the regime has invested in a determined way in the purchase and operation of port and wide infrastructure of the world.

According to a report from the Foreign Relations Council, Chinese Entities They have acquired participations up to 129 projects, of which 17 are under their majority control.

The most symbolic of all of them is Chancay megaporton the outskirts of Lima, a sumptuous work valued at 3.6 billion dollars mostly financed by COSCO, the Chinese state shipping company, and inaugurated last November by Xi Jinping and its Peruvian counterpart, Dina Boluarte.

“The expectations behind the project are up to your investment,” he says Juan Pablo Cardenal, Researcher and co -author of the book ‘The silent Chinese conquest’ (criticism, 2011). «Aspires to capture half of the maritime trade between the Asian giant and South America by reducing the traffic time of the route in ten days. But in the midst of that message of optimism, it is striking that a crucial aspect of Chancay, such as its potential dual use and the geopolitical risk that is derived from it, has passed most unnoticed.

In Europe, the Chinese presence is equally remarkable. Cosco herself holds majority participations in the terminals of Bilbao and Valencia, and other ports of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Malta and Greece are also under the influence of large Chinese conglomerates. The Athenian Pireo came to receive in 2017 the “friendly visit” of naval fleets of the popular liberation army.

This network has an obvious purpose, given that the second world economy and first export power performs 95% of its exchanges through maritime routes. But there is more. A report by Asia Policy Institute suggested that China could also use it “as a weapon”, through the requirement that – the case – these enclaves also serve from naval bases, as imposed by the country’s legislation, according to which civil ports They must provide logistical support to warfalls if necessary.

Nor is it coincidence that the Navy of the Popular Liberation Army is Since 2020 the largest naval force in the world By total number of boats. The American fleet, however, is still considered superior by its nuclear aircraft carriers, global presence, advanced technology and operational experience. The confluence of these dynamics reveals the swells of an increasingly interconnected and polarized world, an essential contradiction perhaps unsustainable.