Journal of Asia Pacific Studies ( 2011) Vol 2, No 1, 97-117

Chinas Military Presence in Africa:

Implications for Africas Woobling Peace
Chuka Enuka, Center for Contemporary International Relations, Jilin
University (China)1

Abstract: This paper surveys the military aspect of the age-long

interaction between China and Africa, and how it impacts the peace of
Africa. Issues that border on China-Africa relations have no doubt gained
currency in academic discourses centering mainly on trade, and economic
related factors. But the military dimensions of the relationship, especially
Chinas military involvement in Africa are passing with minimal scholarly
attention, yet needing examination. Within the general ambit of Chinas
expanding engagement in Africa, this paper discusses the military factor.
It historically contextualizes China-African military links, and argues that
Chinas continued arms sales to Africas problem areas, cynical military
relations and support to rogue and blood-thirst regimes, and her doubledealing peacekeeping roles in Africa, do not help the peace condition of
Africas wobbling states

Keywords: Sino-African Relation, Arms Sales, Military Presence,

Africas Peace, Conflict

Introduction
The Chinese approach to foreign relations is officially
termed "noninterference in domestic affairs". But Beijing's
recent military involvements in Africa and the handling of
the conflict situation in places like Sudan shows that China
is learning the limitations of noninterference. Because of
strategic interests, China is enmeshed in cutting deals with
1

Chuka Enuka is a lecturer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.

Currently he is attached to the Center for Contemporary International Relations Studies,
Jilin University, China, on a leave. His research interests include, war and peace studies,
China-Africa studies and International History, on which he has published numerous
articles in diverse journals and collected volumes.
Address: Friendship Guesthouse, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun, 130012, China.

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bad governments and providing them with arms." Arms sales

and military relationships help China gain important African
allies in the United Nationsincluding Sudan, Zimbabwe,
and Nigeriafor its political goals, including preventing
Taiwanese independence and diverting attention from its
own human rights record. To meet its oil and mineral needs,
Beijing has consistently delivered arms to pariah states in
Africa especially the conflict-torn zones which have come
under western sanctions and United Nations embargo, in
their attempt to address the horrendous massacre and
genocidal killings that have characterized the politics of
those areas. Severally, China has been implicated in the
proliferation of arms in Africa which either provoke conflicts
or exacerbate the existing ones (Tongkeh, 2009, Alden, 2005,
Taylor 2005, SAVEDARFUR, 2007). Many Chinese firms were
accused of smuggling illegal arms: Chinese AK-47, machine
guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers into Liberia,
Sierra-Leone and Ivory Coast where rebels and mercenaries
were involved in civil wars. These arms gain faster inroads
owing to their relatively cheap costs. China sold 55million
dollars worth of arms to Sudan between 2003 and 2006,
flouting United Nations arms embargo (Shinn, 2008). It was
with Chinese assistance that the Sudanese government built
an arms factory in Khartoum at the heat of the war years in
Sudan. When Zimbabwe came under western sanctions, its
president Robert Mugabe turned east to China for military
assistance. Faced with E U and U S embargo, Mugabe in
2004 bought fighter aircraft and military vehicles from
China. The depth of the dubious military transactions
between China and Mugabe was unveiled in the scandal
involving a Chinese ship- An Yue Jiang, carrying weapons
destined for Zimbabwe, but were stopped in South Africa in
April 2008 (Brautigam, 2009). As China expands its
engagement throughout Africa, it increasingly finds itself
involved in African internal affairs militarily. This
involvement takes essentially three forms: Chinese arms
sales which make their way into conflict zones, Chinese
participation in UN Peacekeeping operations, Chinese
responses to the case of kidnapping of Chinese nationals or
attacks on Chinese facilities. On what the Chinese military
roles in Africa truly portend, and how it impacts on the
peace of the continent, opinions tend to differ. Some argue

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that through its military deals with Africa, that China offers
security alternative to the west for African states, and that
through its deployment of peacekeeping troops to Africas
boiling areas, Chinas military presence in Africa has
impacted positively on the continent (Shinn, 2009,
Kurlantzick 2009). On the contrary, this paper argues that
with arms originating from China into Africas troubled
zones, and in defiance to the United Nations embargo,
Chinese determination to militarily protect its economic
interests in Africa at the expense of millions of lives of
helpless Africans who either suffer death or are internally
displaced, conflicts in Africa have been exacerbated. This
unarguably has remained a negative impact on the much
needed but lacked peace of Africa.

Historicizing Chinas Military Presence in Africa in the

Pre-Independence Era
Chinas military relations with Africa stretches back to
1950s when China gave its support to revolutionary and
independence movements in Africa. The Asian-African
Conference at Bandung, Indonesia was seminal in the SinoAfrican relationship (Larkin 1971). The conference agenda
captured the vexing issues of colonialism, imperialism and
the hegemonic position of the Western powers. What the
participating nations had in common was their shared
history and perception of white dominance by the West
(Foster et al, 2009; Looy, 2006). Thus, the conference was
significant in spurring anti-imperialist and anti-colonial
struggle of the colonially subjugated and imperialistically
plundered African and Asian people. The conference marked
the start of definite interest by the Peoples Republic of China
in the overall African affairs and its anti-colonial struggle in
particular. Beginning from this conference, China began
gradually, its military involvement in the continent of Africa.
From 1957 until Algerian independence, China supplied the
Algerias National Liberation Front, FLN, with military
weapons and training in Angolas fight against the French
colonial power. China offered to send 280,000 volunteers to
Egypt during the Suez crisis (Taylor 2006). Owing to the

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deteriorated relationship between China and the West

(Chiefly USA) on one hand, and the Soviet Union on the
other hand, China saw disruption and promotion of unrest
in Africa as central to Chinas policy of frustrating the
ambitions of the United States and the Soviet Union. It is on
record that Chinese military instructors made Ghana a base
for training guerrilla fighters in 1964, and that Rhodesian
freedom fighters received training in China (Chuka 2010).
Taylor (2006) contains that from Rhodesia, ZANU fighters
were taken to China for military training. A pocketbook
found on the body of a guerrilla fighter killed in Sinoia
skirmish, showed that he had been a pupil at Nanjings
Military College in 1965. Eduardo Mondlanes Mozambique
Liberation Front, FRELIMO, fighters received free weapons
from China and adopted Chinese tactics of guerrilla warfare.
Shinn (2008), records that from the early 1960s FRELIMO
began sending delegations to China. Within the framework of
the Organization for African Unity, OAU, China equally
coordinated its military training for liberation groups
struggling for freedom from colonial subjugation. It provided
the organizations liberation committee with 75% of all the
military aid it received externally between 1971 and 1972
(Shinn 2008, Taylor 2006). China trained and supplied arms
to a number of losing opposition and revolutionary groups in
Africa. It gave early and initial support to the Popular
Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA. But as Angola
strengthened its ties with the Soviet Union, China shifted its
military assistance in the late 1960s to the National Union
for the Total Independence of Angola, UNITA. Jonas Savimbi,
UNITAs leader reportedly received military training in China
(Rotberg 2008). Not many years after, China in a dramatic
shift, had its support focused on the National Front for the
Liberation of Angola, FNLA, and its leader, Holden Roberto.
By the early 70s, China had its 112 military instructors
deployed to Zaire, to train the FNLA. It was notable that
China ignored its rhetoric on noninterference, and got
involved in Africa militarily

Chinas Recent Military Presence in Africa

Chinas recent military involvement in Africa takes
essentially the forms of selling of Chinese arms, construction
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of small arms factory in a number of African states,

participation in UN peacekeeping operations, and defense of
Chinese oil investments and Chinese personnel who often
come under heavy attacks in Africas conflict zones. China is
a major supplier of small arms and light weapons to Africa.
As noted by Alden (2007), military cooperation and growth of
arms sales are parts and aspects of Chinas relations with
African governments, especially those under threat owing to
civil war, insurgency or even domestic opposition but which
are barred from obtaining weapons from traditional western
sources. Chinese AK-47 assault rifles are common in
national armies as well as among armed rebel groups such
as those in eastern Congo. They also appeared in Uganda,
Rwanda, Burundi, and in Chad and Darfur in the Sudan.
Chinas arms sales to Africa stood at 1.3billion in 2003
(Alden 2007). From 2000 to 2003 China delivered about 13%
of all arms to sub-Saharan Africa, the second highest
provider after Russia. From 2004 to 2007, Chinas
percentage increased to almost 18%, featuring the delivery of
artillery pieces, armored cars, minor surface combatants,
supersonic combat aircraft and other aircrafts (Grimmett
2008). While Chinese supplies may not be the highest,
Chinese weaponry has nevertheless proved to be significant
in some Africas bloodiest conflicts, where decades of civil
wars have provided a welcome market for foreign arms
merchants. The classic contemporary example of Chinas
weapon-exporting policy in Africa is Chinas involvement in
Sudans long war. In Sudan Beijing pursued a policy that
was entirely based on economic interest, and have supplied
the Sudanese government with fighter aircraft and an
assortment of weaponry (Taylor 2006, Shinn 2009, Alden
2007, and Brown & Sriam 2008). The Chinese have set up
three small arms factories in Sudan that produce light
weapons for use in the region as well as in Uganda.
Beginning from 2000, Mugabes Zimbabwe was faced with a
series of punitive measures by the Western countries. Faced
with increased international isolation and economic crisis
reaching epic proportions, president Mugabe in 2005
announced a new Look East policy, turning its back to the
West, and facing the East from where the sun rises
(Brautigam 2009). Despite the countrys dangerous turmoil,
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and instability, China supplied Zimbabwe with about

28million in arms between 2005 and 2007 (SIPRI, 2010).
Aside selling of light weapons, China built a weapons factory
for Zimbabwe (Meidan 2006). In 2005 China sold to
Zimbabwe, 6 jets for its air force. This was soon followed by
12 jet fighters and 100 military vehicles, valued at about
240million (Brown and Sriram 2008). China supplied tanks,
artillery, armored vehicles, antiaircraft batteries, riot control
gear and radio-jamming equipments (Eisenman 2008). Just
after Zimbabwes disputed March 2008 election, a Chinese
freighter, An Yue Jiang, was returned to China after unions
in South Africa and neighbouring countries refused to
offload the cargo. Four of the thirty-six containers contained
ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades intended for
trans-shipment to Zimbabwe (Brautigam 2009). It was later
reported that in that same year, that tones of that same
ammunition were flown into Zimbabwe from the Democratic
Republic of Congo. The Nigerian governments frustration
with US congressional interference in the delivery of patrol
boats for the troubled Niger Delta contributed to its decision
to switch to Chinese military equipment. China granted
Nigeria 1million in 2001 to upgrade its military facilities. A
251million contract was negotiated between Nigeria and
China to purchase twelve F-7M Airguard multipurpose
combat aircraft and three FT-7NI dual-seat fighter trainer
aircraft (Chau 2007). The deal included twenty three PL-9
short-range air-to-air missiles, unguided rockets, and bombs
for antitank and run runway denial missions, and training
twelve Nigerian pilots in China. Ghana received the sum of
1.7million from China in 2007 for the upgrading of its
defense and military equipment. Earlier to this, the two
countries inaugurated a combined military-police barracks
at Burma Camp in Accra, financed by a 3.8million interest
free loan. China sells aircraft to Egypt and Kenya (Hellstrom
2009). Light strike aircraft such as the K-8 and the JF-17
multi-role combat aircraft have been sold to Algeria,
Botswana, and Morocco (Grimmett 2008).
To sale or buy arms is not however by itself condemnable
given especially the nature and order of international politics
and practice (Morgenthau 1948, Waltz 2001). By supplying

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African governments with military equipment, China will be

helping to strengthen the military capacities of its key allies
in Africa, and expand its influence in oil-producing
countries. The prospects for significant revenue earnings
from arms sales to Africa are relatively small (Hellstrom
2009). Such sales is viewed as one sure means of enhancing
Chinas status as an international political power, and
increasing its ability to obtain access to significant natural
resources, especially oil (Smith 2008, Wendell 2009, Dijk
2009). What however makes Chinese arms deals with Africa
to come under serious criticism is its practice of flouting and
breaching United Nations arms embargo, and supplying to
belligerent groups, thereby worsening the already bad peace
conditions of those areas into where such weapons are
exported.
The past decade saw widespread changes in Chinas foreign
defense policy. The 2006 White Paper, Chinas National
Defense in 2006, charges the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA)
with implementing the military strategy of active defense
a term that has grown to provide justification for use of
military force outside the PRCs borders. For the first time,
the paper outlines the PLAs responsibilities to: Take the
initiative to prevent and defuse crises and deter conflicts and
wars, take part in international security cooperation,
strengthen strategic coordination and consultation with
major powers and neighboring countries, and conduct
bilateral or multilateral joint military exercises and play an
active part in maintaining global and regional peace and
stability (Parenti 2009). Bolstered by the change in policy,
China began to send her troops to UN peacekeeping
operations in Africa. Chinese peacekeepers are deployed to
United Nations peacekeeping operations worldwide, but their
presence in Africa is striking. Of roughly 2,000 peacekeepers
China has deployed around the world, on overage during the
first nine months in 2008, 77 percent were in Africa. China
is by far the largest contributor to Africa peacekeeping
among the Security Councils permanent members, with 63
percent of total p-5 contributions to the continent (Qiang
and Tian 2009). Chinas participation in the United Nations
peacekeeping regime and composition of its deployments
allow Beijing to develop and nurture its national interests,

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maintain friendly relations with recipient governments, and

at the same time project the image of a responsible
stakeholder on the international stage. Sudan is a case in
point. China has consistently opposed efforts within the
Security Council to pressure or punish Khartoum, and in
fact China has been among the large suppliers of weapons to
the Sudanese government. Yet at the same time, it has
deployed personnel to both United Nations Mission in
Southern Sudan, and the hybrid African Union-UN Mission
in Darfur (SaveDarfur 2007).
The composition of Chinese deployments is generally on the
softer side of such military interventions. Of the total
number of Chinese personnel contributed to missions
around the globe, 5 percent are military observers, 14
percent are police, and 81 percent are troops (Parenti 2009).
In Africa, the troops component of Chinas contribution is
even higher, at 91 percent. Troops carry out a variety of
tasks and functions. In addition to combat units tasked with
defending UN installations and personnel as well as local
civilians in immediate danger, this component includes
enabling units such as engineers, logistics staff, and medical
personnel. Unlike the contingents of police and military
observers which are composed of a mixture of personnel
from all contributing countries, troops are deployed in their
organic home units, which leave the contributing countries
with substantial influence on their deployment whereabouts
and, though rare, the ability to utilize those troops for
projects other than those mandated by the mission (Levy
2009).
In Africa, the vast majority of Chinas peacekeeping troops
fall within the category of enabling units. Chinas
contribution to United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID),
consisted of a 315 member engineering contingent
dispatched to help with the construction of camps, roads
and bridges. Well diggers and relevant equipment was also
sent by China to Darfur region to solve the problem of water
shortage facing the hybrid African Union-United Nations
force. Similarly in Southern Sudan, China contributed to UN
Mission in Sudan 460 engineers, transport experts, and
medical personnel. In all, according to the vice director of the

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Peacekeeping Affairs office of Chinas Ministry of National

Defense, Wei Yanwei, Chinese peacekeepers worldwide have
built or repaired more than 200 bridges and 7, 500
kilometers
of roads, airports, and
water supply
infrastructures, and they have treated nearly 50,000 local
patients (Buisness Day 2004). The pattern is similar in
Liberia where Chinas 530 peacekeeping troops consist of
engineering, transportation, and medical staff. Of the
approximately 200 Chinese peacekeepers in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, 175 were engineers and 40 medical
personnel who provided applauded medical support in
Central Africa
While these various enabling units are tasked mainly with
supporting the mission and its peacekeepers needs, records
show that in the process, many facilities, items of
infrastructure, and services that benefit local populations
are also being constructed and rehabilitated (Levy 2009,
Harland 2004). In this aspect of peacekeeping, the soft
security portion of nation building and reconstruction, the
greatest opportunity lies for using soft power to promote
Chinas wider national interests. Significantly, Chinas
largest peacekeeping contributions in Africa are also where it
has made large investments in natural resources, and where
good government-to-government relations will ultimately
resound to its economic interest.

Peace Implication of Chinese Military Roles in Africa

Peace is a prominent, core feature in Chinas official
presentation of its purpose in international affairs and
Africa. The importance of peace and resolving conflict is
regularly invoked by Beijing, but this is not significant in
Chinas engagement with Africa. China Africa policy (2006),
for example devotes just one paragraph to this area (Large
2008). Likewise the humanitarian and peace assistance
China has provided, mostly in kind, is minor in comparison
to its investments in Africa. Chinese government has not
proactively sought to involve itself in Africas peace
processes, rather it has affirmed the primary responsibility of
the international community and engaged as and when its
interests have been threatened. Chinese companies in places
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are reinforcing pre-existing resource-related conflict

dynamics in Africa. For example, Chinas recent entry into
the Nigerian oil sector has involved Chinese companies
becoming caught up in conflict between the Nigerian state
and militias, with China supplying fighter jets, missiles and
training (Alden 2007). As such, the already wobbling peace
condition of the continent has been negatively impacted
upon by Chinas foray into Africa.
To meet its oil and mineral needs, Beijing has
consistently delivered arms to pariah states in Africa
especially the conflict-torn zones which have come under
western sanctions and United Nations embargo, in their
attempt to address the horrendous massacre and genocidal
killings that have characterized the politics of those areas.
Severally, China has been implicated in the proliferation of
arms in Africa which either provoke conflicts or exacerbate
the existing ones (Tongkeh, 2009, Alden, 2005, Taylor 2005,
SaveDarfur, 2007). Many Chinese firms were accused of
smuggling illegal arms: Chinese AK-47, machine guns and
rocket propelled grenade launchers into Liberia, Sierra-Leone
and Ivory Coast where rebels and mercenaries were involved
in civil wars. These arms gain faster inroads owing to their
relatively cheap costs. China can thus be held responsible
(alongside with others) for the death and destruction that
Africas various wars have visited upon the people of the
continent. Such military involvement in ongoing civil wars
and conflict situations in Africa is not conducive for peace in
Africa. There is a very real danger that Beijings supposed
non-interference stance merely masks the bottom line: the
chase for profits and oil (Taylor, 2006). This has been carried
on with nonchalance towards Africas political stability and
peace. As Ian Taylor noted, unmoved by concerns and
without fear of political consequences, Chinese government
seems willing to fuel a small-arms race in sub-Saharan
Africa to generate additional revenues for the PLA It is a
common knowledge that China employed military means to
protect her economic interests in Sudan and elsewhere in
Africa, thereby contributing to a steady degeneration of the
already tenuous security and humanitarian situations in the
continent. At the instance of attack on its oil installations in
Kordofan, a Sudanese region neighbouring Darfur, Chinese

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government reportedly deployed about 400 soldiers in

civilian clothing, to protect its economic investment against
the assault of the rebels (Gerttz and Rowan 2004, Dijk 2009,
Shinn 2008). This was the first time China directly got
involved militarily in Africas troubling domestic politics.
While under attack in Ethiopia by the Ogaden Liberation
Front, China was not to stand and watch its oil explorers
die. Beijings decision was to start defending and protecting
its workers with armed guards (Puska 2008). In the Niger
Delta in Nigeria, Chinese employees of Chinese oil companies
have also been attacked. China concludes that such events
make it difficult for China to maintain its non-interference
stance (Dijk 2009). Hence China considered military
presence in certain Africa countries, thereby becoming a part
of Africas exacerbating conflict situation rather than being a
solution.
In Zimbabwe, oppressive rule has been sustained
owing to some extent, Chinas substantial military support to
president Robert Mugabe. It is on record that Mugabe raped
democracy in Zimbabwe, sanctioned brutal gang violence
against opposition parties, condoned the kidnapping and
torture of human rights activists, and encouraged a chaotic
land redistribution that delivered many farms into the hands
of politicians who coveted them, rather than the landless
poor. This tenuous power-sharing arrangement provoked
violence in the country. Attempts by human rights activists
and the international community to redress and halt this
abuse was frustrated by Chinese continued military support
to the dictator. With assured weaponry and military supply
from China, the brutality inflicted by the supporters of
Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF was to continue
(Brautigam 2009, Dijk 2009). Despite the countrys
dangerous turmoil and instability, China supplied Zimbabwe
with millions of dollars worth of arms. This supply was
intended for Mugabes more lethal crackdown on his political
opposition. It is widely believed that Chinas military support
and supplies prolonged Zimbabwes crisis.
Darfur reveals the hollowness of the post-Holocaust
promise of never again. In Darfur for nearly three years,
the Sudanese government together with militia proxies

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committed widespread, systematic violence against the

regions black African population. The violence was massive
and often executed in broad daylight. Arab perpetrators
displaced more than two million black Africans and claimed
the lives of more than two hundred thousand civilians (Scott
2006). But what has been the role of China in this drama?
China has played a direct role in selling arms to Sudan and
in developing its weapons industry. Chinese arms sales rose
twenty five fold within the Sudans war years (SaveDarfur
2007). Much of this occurred in spite of United Nations
Security Councils arm embargo. In spite of Chinas denials,
evidences point to her indictment. Shell casings collected
from various sites in Darfur suggest that most of the
ammunition used by parties to the conflict in Darfur is
manufactured in China (United Nations 2006). China has a
huge investment in Sudanese economy, the oil sector in
particular (Brautigam 2009, Dijk 2009, Rotberg 2008). China
is the leading developer of Sudanese oil industry and major
purchaser of Sudanese oil. Though Beijing regularly justify
Chinas economic involvement in Sudan as being key to that
countrys development, but it is obvious that in the context
of rising imperative for peace and multilateral efforts to halt
the blood-thirsty Khartoum regime, the concentration of
wealth and weapons among the Sudans ruling elite by
Chinese investment and arms deals, unconditionally feeds
conflict. As the Sudanese erstwhile Deputy Central Bank
governor, Elijah Aleng said, When you exploit oil resources
and nothing goes to the population, then you are financing
the war against them with resources and that is negative
(Sunday Tribune 2007). With the help of its Muslim
Janjaweed militia groups and the blessing of Bashir, the
Sudanese Air Force has used Chinese-given weapons against
defenseless villagers in Darfur (Scott 2006, Puska, 2007).
There have been also persistent claims by independent aid
groups that Sudanese government troops and rebels have
used Chinese oil company airstrips to conduct bombing
raids on villages and hospitals. The pilots of the Fatan A5
jets used in massacres against unarmed civilians in Darfur,
were trained by China (Bonincontro 2010).
It was for sure, during Chinas presidency of the
United Nations Security Council that Resolution 1769 was

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passed, contributing as it appeared, to the peace of that

highly disturbed part of Africa. But reports indicate that
owing to her accruing economic gains from the sales of arms,
China worked behind the scenes to significantly weaken the
terms of the resolution (SaveDarfur 2007, Stakelbeck 2006).
Working with Sudan, China succeeded in deleting language
that would have set the stage for mandatory Security
Councils targeted sanctions were Sudan to fail to cooperate
in implementing the Resolution. The hybrid forces mandate
to seize and dispose weapons found in Darfur in
contravention of the arms embargo was diluted in the final
text. The force was permitted merely to monitor them
(Small Arms Survey 2007). Chinas prolonged reluctance to
endorse United Nations entrance into Sudan, to halt the
carnage and horrendous killings of thousands of especially
children and women, was based on her deeply entrenched
economic gains arising from exportation of military arms and
oil exploration, but neatly cloaked under the noninterference
rhetoric. The Chinese officials and media claimed that the
root causes of the Darfur conflict were poverty and lack of
development (Stakelbeck 2006: 4). Even if we admit the twin
factors of poverty and lack of development as causal factors
in the Darfur conflict, we ask: will a continued military
support and supply of weapons to the already boiling Sudan
vitiate or exacerbate the internecine situation? Denying any
logic in the Chinas noninterference ploy, Stakebeck (2006:
4) concluded that Chinas Sudan policy is manipulative and
opportunistic Ignoring the displacement of an estimated 2
million Sudanese villagers and the murder of 180, 000
others for its economic gain, China worked to have it both
ways. While it sold lethal military weapons to the
government of Bashir, and protected it from UN sanctions, it
gave humanitarian aid to the estranged Darfur. At best the
resultant effect is that the peace that is a desideratum
became rather distanced as the north and south civil war in
Darfur became perpetuated. In like manner, while Ethiopia
and Eritrea were towards war, Chinese corporations
transferred a substantial share of 1 billion US dollars in
weapons to both countries between 1998 and 2000 (Taylor
2005). Rather than dousing the conflict in Rwanda, Chinas
arm deals with the belligerent groups worsened the already
bad peace and security condition of that country. In 1995, a

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Chinese ship carrying 152 tones of ammunition and light

weapons was refused permission to unload in Tanzania. The
cargo was destined for the Tutsi-dominated army of Burundi,
and Tanzania was concerned that ethnic conflict there would
be exacerbated by the arms shipment (Williams and Taylor
2005). Chinas delivery of these weapons goes with the tact
of the final destinations being mislabeled and the weapons
disguised as agricultural equipment (ODI, 1998). By these,
China can be held responsible for impacting negatively on
Africas wobbling peace.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chinese arms
exporters furnished Laurent Kabila with arms in 1997, and
had been supplying the vexed and troubled Kinshasa with
weapons. Sierra-Leones brutal civil war was fuelled by
extensive shipments of Chinese arms. Taylor (2005) notes
that China has been Sierra-Leones main arms supplier and
stepped up shipments when the civil war began. Chinese
arms deals in Sierra-Leone repeatedly broke United Nations
sanctions and substantially helped to damage the countrys
aspiration for peace and development. One has to question
the coherence and credibility of Chinese peacekeeping efforts
in Africa when China otherwise pursues strategies which
contribute to the eruption and prolongation of violent
conflicts in the continent. For example, while China was an
important troop-contributing country to the United Nations
Mission in Liberia, its economic interests helped Charles
Taylor to maintain himself in power. China imported almost
half of Liberias timber in 2000, and thus provided Taylor
with considerable wherewithal (Tull, 2006). It was only in
2003 that China, an important buyer of Liberian timber
brought itself to reluctantly nod through United Nations
sanctions against Liberia which it had previously opposed on
the devious grounds of increased unemployment in Liberia
(Johnston 2004: 447)
The popular notion that Chinas peacekeeping
involvement in Africa represents her interest in Africas
peace is at best abstract. Large (2008:37) argue rightly that
Chinas attitude to conflict resolution in Africa reflects
contrasting policy priorities and economic interests. The
importance of peace and resolving conflict is regularly

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invoked by Beijing, but this is not a significant aspect of

Chinese engagement in Africa. The instances where China
has actively and substantially responded to conflict
resolution and mediation efforts in Africa are few. It has not
proactively sought to involve itself in peace process, rather it
has affirmed the primary responsibility of the international
community, and engaged as and when its personal interests
have been threatened. And when it gets involved, the
Chinese government operates only a secondary support role.
While the Chinese contributions to peacekeeping and antipiracy may be said to be positive for Africa, its arms sales
have had negative implications for Africas peace.
Chinese arms sales to Africa fuels arm race. Chinese
specialists in heavy military equipment were reportedly sent
to Equatorial Guinea to provide training for equipments that
the country do not even have (Taylor 2005). This was
presumably in order to sell such weapons to Equatorial
Guinea for oil reasons. For about three months, Chinese
trainers worked with the local army, yet Equatorial Guinea
has no such heavy weapons. The import of this was that
given the climbing oil prices and its accruing financial profits
Beijing stepped in to offer Equatorial Guinea military
weapons and training for the protection of its oil wells from
Nigeria, and Cameroon. The possible resultant effect of such
moves is the fuelling of some sort of arms race in the Gulf of
Guinea (Williams and Taylor 2005:96). In 2004, China sold
military weapons to Zimbabwe worth 40million (Brooks &
Shin 2006). This included 12 Chinese-made FC-1 fighter
aircraft and 100 military vehicles. The FC-1 is a
multipurpose fighter, targeted to serve as a challenge to the
JAS-39 Gripen multipurpose fighters purchased by South
Africa from Sweden (Shinn 2008). This transaction caused
considerable apprehension in South Africa, and led to
international concerns about a regional arms race.
The eastern DRC constitutes one of the longestrunning conflicts in Africa, with attendant murderous
killings. Accounts are numerous that Chinese small arms
have contributed to the killing. Amnesty International
reported that Chinese AK-47s were common among soldiers,
militia and armed groups operating in the Kivu Provinces
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and the Ituri District of the DRC where the weapons have
been used to commit atrocities (Holslag 2007). Chinas act of
continued arms sales to Africas problem areas, cynical
military relations and support to rogue and blood-thirst
regimes, and her double-dealing peacekeeping roles in
Africa, do not help the peace condition of Africas wobbling
states. It rather furnishes and escalates conflicts. As these
conflicts surge, the lacked but much needed development in
Africa is further distanced. Incontestably, conflicts have the
capacity to severely constrain development endeavours by
destroying infrastructure, interrupting the production
process and diverting resources away from productive uses
(Chuka 2008). Sudanese erstwhile finance minister had to
admit that up to 70% of Sudans oil generated wealth in the
inter war years was devoted to weapon acquisition and war
execution (Gentleman, 2006). The obvious resultant effect of
this is that even in the post conflict period, the state
becomes emasculated of its provisioning power. There is a
consensus among conflict theorists (Ali 2006, Azar 1994)
that there is an indubitable causal linkage between
undervelopment and conflict. The feeling of frustration
arising from the states failure to provide basic needs for its
people produces aggressive citizens who resort to aggression
and conflict. Through this process, violence has assumed a
circling phenomenon in Africa.

Conclusion
From the early years of contact with Africa, China has
manifested military involvements in Africa. This has been in
the areas of military training and assistance, arms sales,
anti-piracy and peacekeeping operations. In as much as the
peacekeeping efforts may have engaged China in a positive
way in Africas conflict zones, but continued arm sales in a
manner that exacerbate African conflicts, China certainly
cannot be helping the much needed peace in Africa. China
was opposed to sanctions against Sudan and Zimbabwe and
instead continued its controversial military arms sales to
them for its economic gain, ignoring the tenuous security
situations in those countries. Sale of arms may not by itself
be cynical given the nature and order of international politics
and practice. What however makes Chinese arms deals with
Africa to come under serious criticism is its practice of
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flouting and breaching United Nations arms embargo, and

supplying to belligerent groups, thereby worsening the
already bad peace conditions of those areas where such
weapons are exported. Through so many communiqu,
China has consistently put Washington on the notice that it
would not tolerate any United States insensitivity to Chinas
interests by demanding an end to US arm sales to Taiwan.
Knowing the danger and threat continued sale of arms
portends to her peace and aspiration for a harmonious
China, one will wonder why China will not extend such
understanding in her relations with Africa.

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