European Ports and the China Dependency Trap

Over the past decade, China systematically acquired stakes in European ports, railways, and logistics networks, transforming ostensibly commercial assets into instruments of geopolitical leverage. The most visible example is Piraeus, the Greek port that COSCO transformed into a Mediterranean container hub and the maritime anchor of a Belt and Road corridor running north through Serbia and Hungary toward the EU market. The Haifa Bay Port case provides a comparative lens: Chinese operation of a port adjacent to Israeli naval facilities alarmed Washington and illustrated how infrastructure ownership can blur the boundary between commerce and security. Europe's awakening came late. The 2026 EU Ports Strategy formally designated ports as strategic dual-use infrastructure and called on member states to screen foreign ownership—a significant departure from the liberalization logic that allowed Chinese investment to accumulate in the first place. Meanwhile, alternatives such as the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and the EU's Global Gateway initiative have stalled, exposing the gap between strategic ambition and implementation capacity. The article argues that while Europe has recognized the challenge of dependency, it has yet to demonstrate the financing discipline, political coherence, and execution speed needed to govern its own gateways—leaving critical networks partially exposed to external leverage at a moment of intensifying great-power competition.