As tensions in the Strait of Hormuz continue, the world has entered a new era: that of resource imperialism, dominated by great power rivalries, says historian and economist Arnaud Orain. In his book Le Monde confisqué. An essay on the capitalism of finitude (sixteenth-twenty-first century) (Flammarion, 2025), he describes the end of a maritime space where freedom of navigation was guaranteed by American hegemony to see the reappearance of « imperial silos », where ports are controlled and secured by countries and shipowners.
The major powers consider ports to be vital to their security. Why have they become so strategic again?
Ports are first and foremost essential because raw materials have once again become crucial. We must mention the increasing consumption of animal proteins, and more generally of food, but also minerals, which are once again strategic with the rise of digital technology, defence and the energy transition.
Secondly, the geopolitical context has changed. In the world under American hegemony, ports didn’t really need to be secured. As security collapses, countries and shipowners want to control and secure them by themselves. They want to choose or reject certain operators.
Finally, when the seas become dangerous again, we must be able to take shelter, guarantee differentiated access, and store. Ports are becoming essential. They are strategic assets, as they guarantee supply and secure export markets. They can also be used as bridgeheads by states that want to expand their influence. And here, I am thinking of China.
China has stakes in 145 overseas ports. What is its objective?
Beijing-controlled ports can have dual uses, civilian and military. It was less a question of sending large ships of the People’s Liberation Army there than of developing dual activities and blurring the lines.
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one in Khalifa, in the United Arab Emirates, is suspected of harbouring military activities, possibly also the one in Gwadar, Pakistan. In addition, the Chinese government has already transformed container ships into missile launchers, and has adapted a number of laser weapons to install them on civilian ships. Having become a major maritime and naval power, it intends to secure its ports on the « New Silk Roads ».
In your book, you draw a parallel between today’s ports and the former colonial trading posts…
They have several things in common. Starting with the modus operandi, invented by the East India companies, of the « hub and spoke ». The Dutch East India Company, the VOC [created in 1602], used, for example, its hub in Batavia (Jakarta) to transport nutmeg, cloves, pepper, lacquer and textiles from the four corners of Asia. The goods were then transported to its hub in Amsterdam and then redistributed throughout Europe. The large shipowners follow the same model.
Arnaud Orain, in Paris, March 15, 2023. FRANCESCA MANTOVANI/GALLIMARD/OPALE. PHOTO
The second common point is extraterritoriality. The colonial companies had their own jurisdictions. It was neither those of the States in which they were, nor those of the European States. We find this again today. In the port of Chancay, Peru, for example, a court prevents the Peruvian state from monitoring and controlling it, as if it had lost its sovereignty. It is the Chinese shipowner Cosco that applies its own rules.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and very often at the beginning of the twentieth century, colonial ports could only be served by the shipping companies of the metropolis. The world was divided into competing imperial silos. They didn’t necessarily go to war with each other, but each had its own shipping lines.
We are not there yet, of course, but one may wonder if China’s « New Silk Roads » initiative is not getting closer. When Beijing decides to remove tariffs on imports from 53 African countries, starting May 1, it can be interpreted as a desire to create an imperial silo, especially if you add to it the control of the continent’s most important port terminals and railway lines, which is part of its rivalry with the United States’ silo.
Pourquoi les armateurs multiplient-ils les acquisitions de terminaux portuaires ?
La bataille entre armateurs s’est longtemps jouée sur terre. Lorsque les tarifs de fret étaient bas, il y a quinze ans, les armateurs ont commencé à racheter des entrepôts et des terminaux pour compenser leurs faibles marges sur le transport. Mais, désormais, le secteur est très concentré. Bien sûr, il y a toujours eu des cartels entre armateurs, autrefois les « conférences », aujourd’hui les « alliances ». Mais la concentration horizontale du secteur a beaucoup augmenté et l’on observe aussi, plus récemment, une concentration verticale, avec le rachat des infrastructures portuaires et d’opérateurs logistiques.
Le pouvoir de marché des armateurs est donc devenu considérable, et les autorités de la concurrence ne jouent plus leur rôle. Si vous regardez l’évolution des tarifs de fret ces dix dernières années, ces derniers sont structurellement en hausse, par-delà les pics observés lors de telle ou telle crise. Cette concentration, qui passe par les ports, est un facteur inflationniste pour les importations.
Depuis qu’ils sont contrôlés par les armateurs, les ports se sont-ils transformés ?
Warehouses are back in ports to absorb supply disruptions. Storage is once again becoming a weapon. When a shipowner stores with its logistics subsidiary, such as CEVA for CMA CGM, in order to, he says, increase its « resilience », it increases its market power. Its warehouses do packaging, quality control, order management, etc. And, who knows, maybe one day the shipping companies will absorb the distributors.
Shipowners are encroaching a little more on the land upstream and downstream. And this is reminiscent of the great merchants of Cadiz in the eighteenth century, who waited in their large warehouses for the Spanish fleets from America. They stored and resold according to the evolution of European prices. Today it is the revenge of merchant capitalism on that of industry.
Have these companies become more powerful than states?
When, in Europe, a port like Antwerp [Belgium] says that it is going to equip itself with air defence missiles, it is a little easier to understand why we are returning to a world where these infrastructures have become strategic assets. The large shipping companies, because they control these port terminals and rail networks, sovereign assets par excellence, and the only fleets that would allow the supply and delivery of weapons on a large scale in the event of a wider conflict, increasingly think of themselves as proto-states.
Rodolphe Saadé, of CMA CGM, is received at the White House to participate in the Trump administration’s maritime policy. The same invests in the media and is de facto a geopolitical player. Its decisions on ports, routes, alliances (with Cosco for the moment), its participation in military intelligence, all this makes it in many ways a new East India company, like the tech giants. Shipping companies have understood the importance they have with the public authorities and they intend to take advantage of it.
