At first glance, a car factory hardly seems like a matter of military security. But the possible establishment of Chinese manufacturer SAIC in Ferrol, on Spain’s Atlantic coast, raises a major security concern. What happens when a company linked to the Chinese state sets up operations next to infrastructure used by NATO forces?
SAIC is considering building its first major European electric vehicle plant in Ferrol’s outer port, in Galicia, with an estimated investment of around €200 million. The site has one particular feature: it is located at the entrance to a bay that concentrates a significant share of Spain’s military and naval industrial capacity.
Ferrol is home to one of the Spanish Navy’s main arsenals, Navantia’s military shipyard and the base of the five F-100 frigates, vessels equipped with the Aegis combat system that regularly take part in NATO operations and deployments.
The same shipyards are also building the new generation of F-110 frigates, one of the most important naval programmes currently under way in Europe.
Any military vessel entering or leaving Ferrol must pass through that same bay on its way to or from the Atlantic.
The problem, therefore, does not necessarily lie in imagining a conventional espionage operation. A modern industrial facility generates enormous amounts of information: logistics movements, maritime traffic, communications, supplier activity, images, schedules and changes in port flows. Apparently routine data can become intelligence when collected over years and cross-referenced with other sources.
That risk is a fact.
A report by the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies (IEEE) states that Chinese companies control, manage or operate terminals in 96 foreign ports, 36 of them among the world’s 100 largest by container traffic. China also maintains investments in more than one hundred ports considered geostrategic.
The document specifically warns about the intelligence dimension of this expansion. China manufactures more than 90% of the containers used worldwide and close to 80% of port cranes.
The Chinese logistics system Logink, used in at least 24 international ports, can process information on vessels, cargo, geolocation, manifests and supply chains. The IEEE notes that such capabilities could even make it possible to identify movements of military equipment.
The Ferrol case therefore takes on a European dimension. This is not simply about deciding whether Spain should accept Chinese investment in a region seeking to revive industrial activity. The question is where that investment is located and what kind of physical, digital and logistical access it creates around sensitive infrastructure.
Ironically, the investment by SAIC, a company controlled by the Chinese state, comes at a time when Brussels advocates reducing strategic dependencies on Beijing.
