Katrina Manson of the Financial Times, recently interviewed the 50-year old Foreign Minister of Djibouti Mahmoud Ali Youssouf and President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, a former head of the secret police who has run the country since 1999. The interview was published in the FT on April 1, 2016. During the interview, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf divulged that China will pay US$ 20 million a year for a 10-year lease for the military base, with an option to extend for a further 10 years. He said there will probably be “a few thousand” troops and military staff at the site, along with its own naval berth at the new port. It would use the base to protect its national interest — monitoring its merchant vessels passing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that leads to the Suez Canal, and for its navy to refuel and restock — much as the French did more than 150 years ago. Youssouf also said that China, which is slated to build a second major airport in the country, would have as much right to use drones as the US and French. He added “The Americans have enough technology, enough fighter aircraft, enough drones [here] to control each and every piece of this land and even beyond. Why should the Chinese not have the right to also use those materials . . . to preserve and protect their interest in the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb. Why?”