Africa Horn Now

"We don't take sides; we help you see more sides."

Africa Horn Now

What’s Motivating China’s Military Push in Africa?

By

Eric Olander Veteran New Media and Broadcast Journalist and Cobus van Staden Lecturer, Media Studies, Wits University,

China is steadily expanding its military footprint in Africa, highlighted by the recent deployment of 700 combat-ready troops to join a multinational peacekeeping operation in South Sudan. In all, the People’s Liberation Army and Navy now have anestimated 2,700 soldiers, sailors, engineers and medical staff stationed across the continent.

slide_432178_5625348_compressed
Chinese People’s Liberation Army cadets take part in a bayonet drills at the PLA’s Armoured Forces Engineering Academy Base, on the outskirt of Beijing, July 22, 2014.

The number of troops deployed in Africa is extremely small, even insignificant, in the broader context of the massive Chinese military. However, a discernible trend is becoming increasingly apparent as Beijing expands the range of operations that its forces are engaged in Africa to include post-conflict stabilization (Mali), medical humanitarian missions (Liberia), ongoing conflict stabilization (South Sudan) and anti-piracy operations (Somalia) among others. In all, Chinese military personnel are now involved in 7 out of 9 UN peacekeeping operations on the continent, the most of any permanent Security Council member.

Although it will be a long time, if ever, that China’s small military footprint will rival those of the United States and European countries in Africa, the steadily rising number of PLA/PLAN forces on the continent may indeed have profound consequences. Africa appears to be the theater of operations that is testing two bedrock principles of Chinese foreign policy:

1) The long-held non-interference doctrine

2) No overseas military bases

Former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, David Shinn, who is also a prominent Sino-African scholar at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C., will publish a new research paper that explores what’s motivating the Chinese military push in Africa and how it’s being received by both Africans and the international community at large. Ambassador Shinn joins Eric and Cobus to discuss the new geopolitics of Chinese force projection in Africa.