China’s New Security Strategy for Africa

Abstract

In December 2008, the Chinese Navy deployed three warships into the Gulf of Aden. This operation is not just a key moment in the development of China's blue-water navy, but also demonstrates China's growing willingness to secure its economic interests in Africa. The question is how successful this policy will be. The deeper China ventures into the resource-abundant African continent, the more it stumbles upon various security challenges. It is obvious that the People's Republic of China (PRC) desires to be Africa's most prominent economic partner. It is also unmistakable that the PRC is swiftly gaining diplomatic leverage. What is less clear, however, is how it will respond to the perils that lie ahead. Throughout history, most external powers for whom Africa's mineral wealth became indispensable to their industrial growth backed up their economic forays with a projection of military might, to suppress local resistance in their dominions or defend their realms from imperialist competitors. The dispatching of forces to Africa derived from the desire to reduce vulnerability while not having to rely on others. (1) Now China has achieved a stage of economic development which requires endless supplies of African raw materials and has started to develop the capacity to exercise influence in most corners of the globe. The extrapolation of history predicts that distrust and uncertainty will inevitably lead the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to Africa in staggering numbers. In application of the self-help paradigm, China is expected to confront security challenges autonomously, while keeping other powers at bay. This article provides an overview of recent security challenges and the ways in which China has been adapting its security policy, then discusses what China's options are for the future and to what extent unilateral military action in Africa is feasible. Security Challenges There are several sources of uncertainty regarding China's aspirations in Africa. Chinese mining activities often fall prey to endemic instability and violence in economic partner states. Since 2004, several Chinese companies have been in the frontline of internal conflicts. In 2004, rebels abducted Chinese workers who were working in southern Sudan. (2) In April 2006, a separatist movement detonated a car bomb in the south of Nigeria, warned that investors from China would be treated as thieves, and threatened new attacks on oil workers, storage facilities, bridges, offices, and other oil industry targets. A spokesperson for the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta condemned China for taking a $2.2 billion stake in oil fields in the delta. (3) In July of that year, violent protests erupted at the Chinese-owned Chambisi copper mine in Zambia, resulting in five deaths and severe material damage. In November, Sudanese rebels launched three attacks on Chinese oil facilities and briefly seized the Abu Jabra oil field close to Darfur. (4) In January 2007, five Chinese telecommunications workers were kidnapped by gunmen in the oil city of Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria. Two weeks afterward, another nine Chinese oil workers went missing after being attacked by an armed group in Bayelsa state, Nigeria. (5) A month later, four assailants raided a Chinese stone plant in Kenya and killed one Chinese employee. (6) In April 2007, nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopian oil engineers were killed during an assault on an oil exploration site operated by SINOPEC's Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), an ethnic Somali group, kidnapped and later released seven Chinese men. The ONLF has repeatedly warned foreign oil companies to leave the region bordering Somalia. In 2008, the Chinese government organized the evacuation of 212 compatriots from Chad to Cameroon after clashes in N'Djamena, Chad's capital. In the seas around Africa another risk looms. …