China has offered to provide more military aid and training to African countries as it seeks to strengthen its security contacts in the face of multiple challenges across the continent.
President Xi Jinping made the offer – which includes 1 billion yuan (US$140.5 million) in military aid and training for 6,000 military personnel and 1,000 police officers – in a speech to mark the opening of the China-Africa Cooperation Summit on Thursday.
Beijing will also invite 500 young military officers to China and take part in exercises and patrols with African counterparts, as well as helping to clear landmines – a major concern for some countries.
Details of the package and which countries will benefit have yet to be announced, but it contained more detail than the pledge made during a previous summit in 2021, which included an offer to take part in security projects and joint anti-terrorism and peacekeeping training exercises.
However, unlike 2021, Xi did not mention efforts to control the spread of small arms.
China has stepped up its military engagement with African countries in recent years as it competes for influence with the United States.
Last year its military diplomacy put Africa in second place, behind only Southeast Asia, for the number of “senior-level” meetings, according to the think tank Asia Society Policy Institute.
In recent months the People’s Liberation Army has taken part in a series of exercises with African countries, including a counterterrorism drill with Tanzania and Mozambique last month.
China also took part in a naval exercise with Russia and South Africa earlier in the year, something that attracted particular scrutiny because of South Africa’s role as a US strategic partner.
China has long been a major training destination for African militaries, including hundreds of senior commanders who have been trained in PLA institutions.
It was also the largest arms supplier for sub-Saharan Africa between 2019 and 2023, providing 19 per cent share of total arms imports and narrowly overtaking Russia, which had long taken the top spot and accounted for 17 per cent of imports over that period, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
As well as small arms, it is a major supplier of equipment such as drones, tanks and armoured vehicles.
Liselotte Odgaard, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said China’s long-term focus on Africa means it does not just see it as “a source of strategic resources” but is also trying “to build political relations and listen to the views and interests of African elites which were not a high priority for most Western countries”.
“The Chinese influence also has a security dimension, which Chinese military aid reflects,” said Odgaard.
“Only now is the West trying to seriously counter China’s influence by listening to the voices of Africa … The question is if such efforts are too little too late.”
China has provided some form of military aid to nearly every country on the continent as it seeks to strengthen ties and protect its economic interests.
Late last month, PLA donated another round of equipment – mostly howitzers and their accessories – to Benin, which has seen an increased number of militant attacks as part of the wider Islamist insurgency across West Africa.
Djibouti in the Horn of Africa is also home to China’s first overseas naval base and PLA warships have regularly taken part in anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia.
Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said military support to Africa could be part of Beijing’s use of the Belt and Road Initiative to “gain greater control and presence in geo-strategically important regions”.
He said: “China’s use of the Belt and Road Initiative is designed to enable and facilitate Chinese access to critical strategic resources and also key port facilities around the world to support the flow of those resources to sustain China’s economic growth.
“The military support in question could be part of this process – to get African states dependent on China for their security, and they would have little choice in the matter given their dependency on Beijing through [belt and road].”
Ilaria Carrozza, a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said Beijing sees military aid as a “cost-efficient way to protect their economic interests and strengthen cooperation with recipient countries”.
But Carrozza said: “It is important to put the figure in context, as 1 billion yuan is still below average US figures for military aid to the continent … It is unlikely that these donations will make a substantial difference in building the capacity of African armies and police.
“But they do send a signal that Africa continues to be strategically important for China in the context of international security and cooperation.”
