Ecuador to Evict U.S., Offer Air Base to China

An earlier version of this article appeared on UpsideDownWorld.

When the U.S. Air Force Southern Command's 10-year usage rights for Ecuador's Manta air base expire in 2009, it can expect to be evicted in favor of China.

President Jamil Mahuad signed a 10-year lease agreement with the U.S. military in 1999. The Manta base is not geopolitically important for U.S. national security, but the Southern Command (South Com) currently uses it to combat illegal cocaine trade in the "source zone" of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. The air base shares a common runway with Quito's Eloy Alfaro International Airport terminal, but the air base has a separate office for cargo, while the airport handles passengers. About 475 U.S. military personnel are stationed at the air base under a 10-year agreement signed with Quito in November 1999, which is due to expire in 24 months.

Acording to Latin Americanist Marc Becker, the agreement with the U.S. military "has proved to be unpopular and, some argue, unconstitutional. The purported purpose of the FOL was to help interdict drug shipments from neighboring Colombia, but opponents contend that the U.S. government has ... move[d] well beyond that mandate into counterinsurgency and anti-immigrant activities." There are also complaints that the base was consolidated by expropriating land from indigenous groups and small farmers, and that it is being used by Colombian pilots and as a center of anti-guerilla intelligence as a part of Plan Colombia, and for the targeting of alleged terrorist groups. From March 5 to 9, 2007, more than 400 activists gathered in Manta for the first International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases. They chose Manta due to the new government's stance against continued U.S. presence.

When Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was campaigning in 2006, he promised to make the contract renewal with the U.S. contingent on a reciprocal agreement allowing Ecuador to build or station military on an air base in Miami, Fla. The United States rejected this idea, and Correa offered the base to the Terminales del Ecuador, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings [HPH] during to Beijing on Nov. 21. China would most likely use the base for cargo transit in trade rather than for security purposes. Strategic Forecasting (STRATFOR) predicts that Correa's offer is "aimed partly at maintaining domestic support, partly at extracting preferential trade access to U.S. markets (something Washington probably will cave in to and deliver), and partly at securing Chinese capital for fulfilling Manta's future role as the largest Sino-Latin American trade trans-shipment hub on the South American west coast."

Correa's presidential campaign also focused on the need to improve regional transport and trade in order to compete with ports in Peru, Colombia and Chile, and to link to industry in Brazil. Some of the roads planned between the Andean countries would also connect waterways linking Ecuador and Brazil. The agreement will create profits for Brazil as well as Ecuador, as the two countries recently signed an agreement to link Manta to the city of Manaus by railway or highway corridor. According to the government, the details of this project have already been discussed with other interested Chinese investment firms. This corridor project is a key part of IIRSA, the South American regional infrastructure integration initiative.

Since before his election, Correa has also emphasized the necessity of attracting Asian investment in order to upgrade infrastructure and therefore expand regional and international trade. In offering the Manta base to HPH, he said that he was offering Chinese investors a "geopolitical window" that would make Ecuador a bridge for accessing markets in South America.