China’s mythical military menace

For some time now the press in the global ‘North’ has enjoyed itself making its readers’ blood freeze with scare stories about the impending takeover of poor defenceless Africa by the Chinese ‘Yellow Peril’.

China’s growing African involvement does indeed raise serious issues for Africa’s policymakers and African civil society. But most of the ‘yellow peril’ coverage is so one-sided as to discredit itself. One recent offering however managed to summarise so many misconceptions as to merit special attention, especially as it concentrates on the one area where it is hardest to conjure up a ‘Chinese threat’.

Whatever view one takes of China’s growing economic involvement, there is one area in which China clearly differs from other powers, especially the USA and France. Apart from its participation in UN peacekeeping operations, it has no military presence on the continent, or any naval presence around its coasts.

This makes it harder to raise a scare about the 'Chinese menace' in the military and security sphere than it has been to mobilise fear of a Chinese economic threat. But this has not prevented some from doing their best.

One of the latest offerings in this genre came in the 9 October issue of the Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard, edited by leading neoconservative William Kristol. In ‘The Great Game in Africa: Washington's emerging containment strategy’, Thomas Skypek, a ‘Washington-based defense analyst’, argues that ‘The African continent is quickly becoming a proxy battleground for Washington and Beijing, as the latter's appetite for emerging markets and raw materials grows’.(1)

And Skypek is clear that the response should be military- or at least military-led: ‘While Washington policymakers deny that Beijing's behavior is the rationale for its establishment, it appears as though AFRICOM marks the beginning of a new containment strategy aimed at curtailing Chinese power and influence in Africa.’

Apparently, a problem with China’s growing economic and diplomatic role on the continent is that ‘From a military perspective, this would significantly complicate U.S. counterterrorism operations, as countries loyal to Beijing place new restrictions on the United States. Additionally, China's proliferation of small arms and light weapons to hostile state and non-state actors will only make the world more dangerous’.

In the longer term this raises the risk that ‘the economic competition between the U.S. and China for the continent's critical resources may decidedly advantage Beijing.’ We also learn that:

‘In fact, some of Beijing's neighbors have taken a newfound interest in Africa themselves. In June 2008, Hany Besada writing in the International Herald Tribune chronicled new investments by both Japan and India in Africa. With regard to India, Besada explained, ‘These efforts reflect New Delhi's eagerness, not only to deepen its engagement and raise its profile with the resource-endowed continent, but, more importantly, to catch up with China.’ As the regional balance in Asia continues to evolve, it is likely that Japan and India will undertake peaceful efforts to check China's growth whenever possible.’

Skypek also quotes with approval a claim from the like-minded Heritage Foundation that ‘Beiing's involvement in sub-Saharan African security issues has expanded to peacekeeping operations, exchange programs, and military deployments’ and adds that ‘China has established close military relationships with states such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria.’

But these views are regarded as extreme by the US policy mainstream, even though they continue to influence the terms of the debate. As a study prepared for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, chaired by Senator Jo Biden, put it:

‘In the vocal minority are those who view China as a growing military menace with malign intent. These hardliners have been perceived sometimes by others as agitators whose counsel to treat China as a major threat to U.S. interests is designed to justify huge U.S. military budgets and is more likely to bring about conflict with China than to deter it. The view that has been pursued more openly by U.S. [a]dministrations is one that counsels cooperation and engagement with China as the best way to integrate China into the prevailing global system as a “responsible stake- holder” - a nation that has “a responsibility to strengthen the inter- national system that has enabled its success.” But opponents of this approach typically paint these as the views of “panda-huggers” who, seduced by the potential of the China market, are oblivious to PRC hostile intent, cave in to PRC wishes and demands unnecessarily, and thereby squander U.S. strategic leverage and com- promise U.S. interests. The confrontational and highly-charged dynamic between these two polar views continues to make elusive the kind of pragmatic and reasoned policy discourse that could create greater American consensus on how the United States should position itself to meet the challenges China poses.’(2)

Not surprisingly, China's official statements reflect the 'benign' interpretation of her security policy in relation to Africa. Thus the section on 'Peace and Security' in the January 2006 White Paper 'China's African Policy' indicates nothing more proactive than bilateral military co-operation:

'China will promote high-level military exchanges between the two sides and actively carry out military-related technological exchanges and cooperation. It will continue to help train African military personnel and support defense and army building of African countries for their own security.’(7)

In the same document China also commits itself to support conflict resolution efforts by the African Union (AU) and other regional organisations and urges the UN to do the same, as well as pledging continuing support to and participation in UN peacekeeping operations in Africa. There are also commitments to judicial and police cooperation in combating crime, corruption and illegal immigration as well as closer cooperation in combating 'terrorism, small arms smuggling, drug trafficking, transnational economic crimes, etc.'

In June 2008 China announced that a total of 10,000 Chinese military had participated in UN peacekeeping operations since 1990. As of early 2008 a total of 1,963 Chinese peacekeepers were serving in UN missions, a greater number than any other Permanent Member of the Security Council, though many less than Pakistan or Bangladesh, at around 10,000 each. And China also has two permanent peacekeeping personnel training centres.(4)

While the sceptic could reasonably argue that these pious sentiments are what is to be expected from official pronouncements, available data appears to confirm the official view. One minimal area in which an increased Chinese military interest in Africa would be expected to show itself would be in the number of defence attachés in Chinese embassies.

But while the number of defence attaché offices in Chinese embassies worldwide has almost doubled since 1985, from 59 to 107, in Africa the number increased only from nine to 14. In other words, a majority of China's embassies in Africa do not even have a defence attaché. By contrast, China has a defence attaché in almost every European capital.(5)

In 2005/06 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval ships visited six countries, none of them in Africa. China conducted joint exercises with eight countries, none of them in Africa. And China participated in 46 security consultations with other countries, only three of which were with an African country, all with South Africa.(6)

And while high-level exchanges with other armed forces increased significantly between 2001 and 2006, from 174 to over 210, in Africa 'bilateral exchanges have remained stable at an annual average of 26. Beijing has established a permanent military dialogue only with South Africa… Hence, China's military diplomacy in Africa remains modest, and it certainly has not kept up with the impressive number of trade officials posted in African countries to strengthen economic ties in the last few years.'(7)

The apparent exception of South Africa only proves the rule. Contrary to the view which sees China's policy as driven by sympathy for autocratic regimes and suppliers of oil, its closest military links are with democratic South Africa, and not with those countries in which China has the greatest interest as sources of raw materials. And even here the military connection appears to take second place to closer economic and diplomatic links.

'Military co-operation, though discussed at senior levels by both governments, appears not to have produced the same levels of co-operation as found in the diplomatic and economic spheres. Certainly, the spectacle of joint military exercises with the Indian and Brazilian navies agreed at the last IBSA [India Brazil South Africa] summit will raise the stakes for those wishing to achieve a closer degree of co-operation between South Africa and China. Moreover, South African weapons producers are by some accounts in competition with their Chinese counterparts for markets in Africa, including Sudan.'(8)

But what of Skypek’s claim that ‘From a military perspective, this would significantly complicate U.S. counterterrorism operations, as countries loyal to Beijing place new restrictions on the United States. Additionally, China's proliferation of small arms and light weapons to hostile state and non-state actors will only make the world more dangerous’.

Well, it is true that, as the report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pointed out: ‘From 2003-2006, China is estimated to have been the third largest exporter of conventional and small arms to Africa, after Germany and Russia,…’ which sounds serious until we see that the sentence continues ‘… having provided about 15.4% ($500 million) of a $3.3 billion total in global sales to the region during that period’(8, p.112).

Nor does the pattern of China's arms sales indicate a primarily military strategic purpose.

'There is no evidence that China's military aid aims at counterbalancing other powers, such as the United States. Apart from Sudan and Zimbabwe, most countries to have received Chinese aid in the last few years are also supplied by Washington. Moreover, in 2007 Beijing temporarily froze the supply of heavy arms to Khartoum after pressure from the West…. China's military aid programmes cannot be considered to benefit its forays into the mining industry. Between 2004 and 2006, resource-rich Nigeria, for instance, received only half the value of the Chinese military aid provided to Ghana or Uganda. In this period it furnished more military assistance to Angola than to Sudan, even though the security challenges in the latter were much more severe than in the former. Although violence in Somalia threatened China's oil exploration activities in both Ethiopia and Kenya, China only made a commitment to Kenya to help the country in the protection of its border. In conclusion, China does provide military aid, but this does not seem to be driven by a coherent strategy to protect its security interests.'(9)

As to countries ‘loyal to Beijing’ being unwilling to cooperate with Washington’s ‘war on terror’, might Skypek have been thinking of Sudan? If so his view is not shared by the State Department’s 2007 Annual Report on State Sponsors of Terrorism (10), which states:

‘The Sudanese government was a strong partner in the War on Terror and aggressively pursued terrorist operations directly involving threats to U.S. interests and personnel in Sudan. In recent months, Usama Bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida leaders have called for the expansion of AQ's presence in Sudan in response to possible deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur. This has led to speculation that some individuals with varying degrees of association with AQ have taken steps to establish an operational network in Darfur, but there were no indications that AQ affiliated extremists were active there…

‘With the exception of HAMAS, the Sudanese government did not openly support the presence of extremist elements in Sudan. The Sudanese government took steps to limit the activities of these organizations. For example, Sudanese officials welcomed HAMAS members as representatives of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but limited their activities to fundraising. The Sudanese government also worked to disrupt foreign fighters from using Sudan as a logistics base and transit point for Jihadists going to Iraq.’

Nor does there appear to be any more basis to Skypek’s fear that China’s increasing economic involvement in Africa will result in increased influence in the UN. The US Senate report quotes research evidence from Latin America which indicates that increased trade dependence on China does not appear to affect a country’s willingness to vote against the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) interests in the UN.(10, pp10-11)

In any case to quote as Skypek does, the impressive increase in China’s trade with Africa and in its raw materials imports and investments without any comparative context is intensely misleading. The position is put in context by Hany Besada, the scholar Skypek quotes on increased Japanese and Indian investment in Africa. In a joint paper with Yang Wang and John Walley he sums up the situation as follows:

‘Trade between the whole of Africa and China (imports and exports summed) grew from $10.6 billion to $73.3 billion between 2000 and 2007, and between Sub-Saharan [sic] Africa and China from $7 billion to $59 billion over the same period. China is now Africa's third largest trading partner behind the EU and the US. The Chinese FDI stock in Africa has grown from $49 million in 1990 to $2.6 billion in 2006. On the basis of these data, one frequently hears the claim that China is now a dominant influence in Africa. … We suggest that while the annual growth rates of trade and investment flows are high (around 30% per year since the late 1990's), the levels are still considerably smaller than such claims might suggest. China in 2006 accounted for only $520 million of inward FDI compared to a total from all sources of $36 billion, around 1.4% of total FDI inflows to Africa; and only 8.6% of African exports and 9.6% of African imports. African interdependence with China thus remains proportionally smaller than that for most other geographical areas, but is growing rapidly.’(11)

A similar comparative perspective is needed to counter Skypek’s bizarre claim that ‘the economic competition between the U.S. and China for the continent's critical resources may decidedly advantage Beijing.’ China in 2006 received about one third of its oil imports from Africa, representing nine percent of Africa’s total oil exports. The US by contrast took 33 percent. The leading energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie estimates that Chinese companies hold less than two percent of Africa’s known oil reserves.(12)

Wood Mackenzie also estimate that the commercial value of Chinese NOC (national oil companies) oil investments in Africa is just eight percent of the combined commercial value of the IOC’s (international oil companies) African oil investments, and three percent of all investments in African oil. Nor do Chinese oil investments in Africa serve to ‘lock out’ Western oil companies and Western countries from access to that oil. As Erica Downs points out:

‘China’s NOCs are actually expanding rather than contracting the amount of oil available to other consumers through their overseas operations, especially through the development of oil fields that other oil companies are unable or unwilling to invest in…most of the African assets held by China's NOCs are of a size and quality of little interest to international oil companies (IOCs). In fact, many of these assets were relinquished by the IOCs’.(13)

CHINA'S 'ROGUE STATE' ALLIES

Sudan and Zimbabwe have been the two chief counts in the critics' indictment of China's role in Africa. Beijing's initial insistence, under the rubric of non-interference in internal affairs, on vetoing action over Darfur in the UN Security Council, and its provision of a crucial lifeline of support to Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe have together been taken as evidence of a ruthless Chinese determination to pursue its short-term self-interest in pursuit of raw materials and markets in defiance of the consensus of the international community.

But more recently there have been signs of a significant shift in Chinese policy towards these two pariah states. The shift is commonly held to have started with the appointment of Liu Guijin, a veteran diplomat and former ambassador to South Africa and Zimbabwe, as a special representative for African Affairs with particular responsibility for Darfur.

However there is evidence that the appointment was itself the result of a shift already under way. In March 2007, in a move interpreted as a sign of Chinese impatience with Khartoum's unwillingness to implement the 'Annan plan', Beijing announced that Sudan was being removed from the list of countries with preferred trade status, bringing an end to financial incentives for Chinese companies to invest in Sudan.

While maintaining China's opposition to sanctions, Beijing is credited with persuading Khartoum to accept a combined AU/UN peacekeeping force, approved by the Security Council in July 2007, to which China is a major contributor.

Foreign diplomats and experts on Darfur note that Beijing also helped in convincing Sudan to attend negotiations with rebel groups next month in Libya. The U.S. special envoy for Darfur, Andrew Natsios, said this week he was not sure what had pushed Beijing to act more decisively on Darfur in recent months, but ‘China is being constructive, using its leverage with the Sudanese government.’

‘I think the Chinese are like a locomotive that is speeding up,’ he told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ‘They are doing things we didn't ask them to do.’(14)

There were also reports that China was ending all but humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe.(15) Though the report was officially denied, Liu Guijin was subsequently quoted as saying: ‘China's assistance to Zimbabwe is mainly humanitarian aid, because in terms of other development assistance we still have some difficulties… In the past, China has provided substantial development aid. Now, with the devaluation of the currency and deterioration of the economic situation, the outlook for this aid is not very good.’(16)

Reasons advanced for the change of line include fear of bad publicity marring the forthcoming Olympics, and an increasing realisation that instability and dysfunctional government are an unreliable political framework for China's long-term economic interests. But it remains to be seen how a cooling of China's hitherto unqualified support for these regimes will translate into a positive attitude to internal change.

These policy shifts can be seen as merely reflecting pragmatic changes related to the specific circumstances in these two countries. In neighbouring Chad China has bought oil exploration rights to an extensive area and also promised an oil refinery and a cement factory. In the short run any oil discovered in the Chinese exploration zone will be exported via a World Bank-financed pipeline to the Atlantic. But in the longer run the aim is said to be to link the field up with a Chinese-built grid in Sudan.

In the opinion of the New York Times, 'Beijing's recent diplomatic activity in the region may be explained by these Chinese oil interests as much as by American pressure on China to help stop the killing in Darfur'.(17)

On the other hand, China's policymakers can also be seen as developing their own attitude in line with changing circumstances, as a pure 'non-interference' stance can be seen as actual interference by forces opposed to the regime being assisted, and by neighbouring countries concerned at destabilisation radiating outwards from 'failed states'.

In this connection it is interesting to note that when Russia and China vetoed the US and British move for UN sanctions against Zimbabwe, the Chinese representative was careful to justify his country's position in terms of allowing more time for the AU-sponsored talks to succeed, rather than in simple rejection of interference in Zimbabwe's internal affairs - the argument strongly emphasised by the Russian delegate.(18)

WHY THE SCARE?

So what could be the reason for Washington hardliners to chill our blood with scares about a non-existent Chinese military threat in Africa? Their view is not predominant, as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee report indicates, and should be even less so after the presidential election. But if so why should the coordination of Washington’s African presence be taking place under the military umbrella of AFRICOM? Are there not real and legitimate security issues around Africa’s coasts which do call for action by the international community? And are there not real causes for concern in recent major increases in China’s military expenditure?

To answer these questions we must take a closer look at the possible reasons for China’s low-key military stance in Africa, and the factors that could lead it to change.

* Stephen Marks is the coordinator of the Fahamu China in Africa project.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

References (all urls last accessed 20-10-08)

(1) The Great Game in Africa Washington's emerging containment strategy. Thomas M. Skypek Weekly Standard 10/09/2008 http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/673xzgig.asp?pg=1

(2) 'China's foreign policy and “soft power” in Asia, Latin America and Africa”: a study prepared for the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_rpt/crs-china.pdf

(3) China's African Policy http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t230615.htm

(4) Ian Taylor 'The Future of China's Overseas Peacekeeping Operations' http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2374037

(5) Susan Puska 'Military backs China's Africa adventure' Asia Times 8 June 2007 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IF08Ad02.html

(6) Defence White Paper 'China's National Defence in 2006' http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/book/194421.htm

(7) Jonathan Holslag 'China's next security strategy for Africa' Brussels Institute of Contemporary China studies http://www.vub.ac.be/biccs/documents/Holslag,%20Jonathan%20(2008),%20China's%20new%20security%20policy%20for%20Africa,%20BICCS%20Asia%20Paper,%20vol.%203%20(6)..pdf

(8) Chris Alden 'South Africa and China: Forging Africa's Strategic Partnership' http://www.jamestown.org/china_brief/article.php?articleid=2374252

(9) Bates Gill, Chin-hao Huang & J. Stephen Morrison 'Assessing China's Growing Influence in Africa' China Security Vol. 3 No. 3 Summer 2007 http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/about/pdfs/china-africa.pdf

(10) US Dept of State Country Reports on Terrorism Released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism April 30, 2008 Chapter 3 -- State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/103711.htm

(11) Hany Besada, Yang Wang, John Whalley China’s growing economic activity in Africa NBER Working Paper No. 14024 Issued in May 2008 http://www.nber.org/papers/w1402

(12) ‘China, Africa, and Oil’ Stephanie Hanson http://www.cfr.org/publication/9557

(13) China Security: The Fact and Fiction of Sino-African Energy Relations Erica Strecker Downs http://www.cfr.org/publication/15191/china_security.html

(14) Antoaneta Bezlova Sudan - showcase for new assertiveness IPS 21 September 2007 http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=39345

(15) Daily Telegraph, 13-08-07

(16) ZimOnline 28 September 2007 http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=2092

(17) New York Times 13 August 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/world/africa/13chinaafrica.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/W/World%20Bank&_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

(18) http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/11/zimbabwe.sanctions/index.html