China’s Djibouti base upgrades should boost its monitoring reach, report says

Djibouti’s former Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf (left) with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during their meeting in 2019.

WASHINGTON - China has made upgrades to its military base at Djibouti that should significantly enhance its ability to monitor military activity across the Middle East and Africa, a report by an American think tank released on Sept 17 said.

Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said commercial satellite imagery showed that China’s military had installed new antennas, satellite communications equipment and other assets at its only formally acknowledged overseas military base.

Conflicts involving the Houthis, Iran, the United States and Israel have brought substantial military activity into the region, increasing the potential value of intelligence collection from the base, the report said.

CSIS said two new communications compounds that had appeared at the base since mid-2024 likely form part of a broader intelligence and military command architecture, and would strengthen communications between Chinese forces operating in the Middle East and Africa and military headquarters in China.

“The type and orientation of the base’s new equipment is varied, enabling transmission and detection across a wide range of signals and frequencies,” the report said.

The facilities would provide China with “a much more robust picture of the operating environment in the region”, the report said.

China’s Washington embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

The report said the base in Djibouti opened in 2017 and serves as a key hub for Chinese naval operations in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. The facility sits near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important choke points for maritime trade.

“The base’s capabilities have continued to evolve over time to enable increasingly sophisticated operations, helping the PLAN establish a growing foothold in the region,” the report said, referring to China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy.

It said the facilities would likely enable the Chinese military to monitor the activities of other militaries operating nearby, although it was not possible to determine whether they were actively intercepting communications.

The report said the US, France, Italy and Japan all operate bases less than 16km from China’s.

It said China could potentially derive useful information even from encrypted military communications and “draw valuable insights into US and other militaries’ operations by observing the direction, origin, frequency, and pace of their signals”.

It said the facility could support Chinese efforts to expand its footprint in Africa, where Beijing has steadily increased both economic and security engagement. REUTERS