China Expanding Haifa Port, Endangering Israeli and American Security

Newsweek

19-05-2025

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"Israel must halt this expansion, reassess the Haifa arrangement, and align itself once again with the values and interests it claims to share with the United States," Gadeer Kamal-Mreeh, a former member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, wrote in a recent op-ed. "Anything less is a betrayal of our shared security—and of the American trust we rely on."
In March, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued permission to China's state-owned Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) to double the capacity of its Bay Port in Haifa. The controversial decision entrenches China in one of Israel's most strategic locations and reflects the continuing ambivalence of countries toward the Chinese Communist Party.
Israeli security professionals in 2015 were alarmed when Israel Ports Co., without adequate interagency review, selected SIPG to run the Haifa port for 25 years.
An Israeli Navy fast patrol boat cruises in the port of Haifa in northern Israel on October 30, 2024.
An Israeli Navy fast patrol boat cruises in the port of Haifa in northern Israel on October 30, 2024.
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images
The threat was obvious. Haifa Bay Port is close to Haifa's airport and is a mere 1.8 kilometers away from the Israeli navy's main base. Haifa, in the northern part of the country, has the Jewish state's largest port.
"Israel's seaports are critical strategic infrastructure," Shaul Chorev, a retired Israeli Navy rear admiral and now a director at the Haifa-based Institute for Maritime Policy and Strategy, told Newsweek. The Haifa Bay Port, he pointed out, "is considered to be amongst the country's most important strategic assets."
"To operate the facility, Shanghai International Port Group will have to connect to all the internet systems of both the harbor and the Ministry of Transportation, exposing them to manipulation, data mining and cyber warfare in the service of Chinese government interests," states the September 2019 report by the University of Haifa-Hudson Institute Consortium on the Eastern Mediterranean, co-chaired by Rear Admiral Chorev. "Given the military and intelligence ties among China, Russia and Iran, the Haifa port arrangements create the risk that China might, under some circumstances, obtain sensitive Israeli naval, merchant shipping and maritime infrastructure information and provide it to Iran."
Iran, therefore, will now have an expanded listening post in Haifa. SIPG can monitor what comes in and out of that port, especially general cargo. At a time of war, the Chinese company could disable cranes at the port or even engage in acts of sabotage, damaging or disabling ships.
Why would the Netanyahu government allow the Haifa port expansion? For too long there has been a failure, around the world but especially in the U.S., to acknowledge the danger posed by China's regime. Even today, in the face of clear evidence that the regime leverages investment and commercial relations to accomplish malicious ends, countries continue to accept Chinese money.
The one obvious solution for Israel is to cancel SIPG's concession. A cancellation, Kamal-Mreeh told Newsweek, "would likely be a highly complex and sensitive move" and "would require a strong political consensus in Israel."
Once such a consensus is reached, there are few legal impediments to a cancellation. Section 9(b) of the May 2015 contract awarding the port concession to SIPG provides that Israel's transport minister, with the consent of the finance minister and after consultation with SIPG, may "cancel or restrict the authorization if he deems it necessary to address the needs of the economy or for reasons of public interest."
China's backing for attacks on Israel would seem to qualify as a "reason of public interest." The Chinese state, for instance, has provided and continues to provide economic, diplomatic, propaganda, and weapons support for Iran's October 7 attack on Israel, and since then Beijing has gone all-in on the Palestinian cause. All three main Iranian proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi militia—have large quantities of Chinese weapons. China supplies critical components, such as computer chips, for Iran's own weaponry.
Of even greater concern, China has provided most of what Iran needs for its nuclear weapons program. For a long time, the international community looked the other way as China, both directly and through the nuclear black market ring of Dr. A.Q. Khan of Pakistan, helped Iran's "atomic ayatollahs" enrich uranium for the world's most destructive devices and take other steps needed for a bomb.
Is cancellation of the port concession possible?
"The feasibility depends largely on the evolving regional security context and the level of support from key allies, particularly the United States," said Kamal-Mreeh, now CEO of Washington, D.C.-based GKM Global Consulting. "Growing concerns over national security and critical infrastructure resilience—especially in light of shifting global alliances—could push the issue higher on Israel's strategic agenda."
China will certainly be upset if SIPG is ejected. Beijing is now throwing a tantrum because CK Hutchison, a public Hong Kong company, had tentatively agreed to sell to BlackRock 199 berths in 43 ports in 23 countries. Two of the ports are in the Panama Canal Zone.
Beijing's intervention in the BlackRock deal shows that it considers ports to be strategic assets, which should encourage the rest of the world to consider these facilities in the same light.
Panama's comptroller general and attorney general are now seeking to cancel CK Hutchison's concessions to its two Canal Zone ports. Israel should be doing the same with SIPG's port in Haifa.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America and The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on X @GordonGChang.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.