Just under half the military equipment in Africa is supplied by Russia, with historical ties stretching back to the anti-colonial liberation struggles of the 1950s and ’60s. The foundations of the security assistance are troop training, arms sales, and the dispatch of mercenaries.
West Africa, in particular, has been tilting toward China for a while in terms of military aid. Accounting for 25% of African maritime traffic, and two-thirds of Africa’s oil production, the region faces a number of security threats.
The growth of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea — an important shipping zone — endangers business and may fuel extremist movements inland. In Nigeria, an estimated 120,000 barrels of crude oil are stolen every day, equivalent to roughly 6% of the country’s output.
On Oct. 28, the Nigerian Navy received a 46-meter patrol boat and other military supplies from China to help combat maritime crime and ensure safety in the gulf that covers 2.3 million square kilometers, and has around 6,000 kilometers of coastline.
In Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, China Harbor Engineering has constructed the Lekki Deep Sea Port, one of the biggest ports in West Africa and designed to handle 1.2 million containers a year. It is meant to serve as a new marine logistics center for the whole region, opening another wave of investment opportunities between China and Africa.
By countering terrorism, “China ensures some level of stability in order to tap the resources,” Ngboawaji Daniel Nte, an expert in security and intelligence at Nigeria’s Novena University, told Nikkei Asia. “Oil and gas, railways — all key infrastructure is already in the hands of Chinese enterprises.”
Nte said Nigeria is tied to China by loans, and with its large and young population, the continent is a new frontier for Beijing. As a result, offering military assistance is in Beijing’s best interest to avoid collateral damage from terrorist attacks on infrastructure, and to protect Chinese nationals in the country.
While many security challenges linger in the region, African countries are particularly interested in options for battling insurgencies, as the support of Western partners has proved insufficient. Over the last eight years, China has participated in almost 40 military exchanges with partners from the Gulf of Guinea, and deployed navy vessels for anti-piracy operations. China’s plan to establish a military hub in Equatorial Guinea is a matter of deep concern for the U.S. Africa Command.
The short distance between the U.S. East Coast and the western coast of Africa means Washington’s response time to a military threat would be very short. The U.S. has 29 known military facilities in 15 countries, making it hard for China to challenge American supremacy on the continent. China’s first military base in Africa, operated by People’s Liberation Army Navy, is in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa.
The U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit, which is set to begin on Tuesday, will give the Biden administration the opportunity to show that it can fend off America’s most formidable long-term opponent in the region.
“The China’s People’s Liberation Army now has the ability to support Africa, and [China] is on the table as much as the USA, and France. African leaders have choices,” said Kamal-Deen Ali, the Executive Director of the Centre for Maritime Law and Security Africa, based in Accra, Ghana’s capital.
However, in his view, “Working with China might be a sensitive issue, as the USA and the U.K. have here a long-established military footprint.
“In a multipolar world, all emerging powers seek to set up bases abroad. They want to project the power, and secure economic interests,” Ali said. “This is superpower projection, and China is emulating the same template the Western countries created.”
He added that political vulnerabilities mean African countries have very little bargaining power. “Benefiting from any foreign cooperation depends on what statecraft African countries deploy,” Ali said.
While China has kept its forces from direct engagement in crises in Africa as part of its noninterference policy, it has also taken an increasingly high profile in United Nations peacekeeping missions. It has sent more than 1,000 troops, police and specialists to oil-rich South Sudan, for example.
“When Chinese interests were threatened by insurgencies in Nigeria, China issued a statement, as it still lacks the military commitment. This can, however, change in the future,” Ali said.
Experts say China is more focused on economic and national security interests than on peacebuilding. Beijing prefers strategies centered on development that help to alleviate poverty and provide stable governance, but do not necessarily advance protection of individual rights and free markets.
But this growth-first attitude may be counterproductive over the long term.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, China has a very close relationship with the government, but attacks in the resource-rich east of the country by a number of rebel groups pose threats to its mining interests.
“Insurgencies happen as the product of social exclusion,” Nte said. “There must be a stable political climate to address economic degradation caused by the wrong policies.”
The interests of African leaders are dominated by their own agendas, domestics politics, and to a lesser extent, national interests, argues Ibrahim Sakawa Magara, an expert in peacebuilding. It is likely to be very tricky for external partners “to resolve any of Africa’s problems.”
Irrespective of the sanctions on Russia, “A lot of governments of African countries are likely to continue with deepening their economic and increasingly military collaborations with China,” Magara said.
