JOHANNESBURG—The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China is expected to train about 2,000 African military and police officers in 2024 and is considering building a second base in Africa as the United States increases investment and security interest on the continent.
However, analysts and human rights workers are concerned that China is grooming military officers to suppress domestic dissent, and even to lead coups against governments perceived to be “too close to the West.”
However, others don’t have a problem with China’s increased military engagement in Africa.
“Why is it a problem when China trains African security forces, but not a problem when America or the United Kingdom does the same?” Johannesburg-based independent political analyst Lindiwe Makhulu asked.
“The United States has 20 bases across Africa; as far as I know, China has only one.”
Washington has had a security presence in Africa for decades, expanding its military stamp significantly after former President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror” following the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda in 2001.
“The command also operates out of 12 other posture locations throughout Africa,” he said in his prepared testimony.
“These locations have minimal permanent U.S. presence and have low-cost facilities and limited supplies for these dedicated Americans to perform critical missions and quickly respond to emergencies.”
But one of Africa’s top defense and military analysts, Helmoed Heitman, who’s also a former high-ranking member of the South African army, told The Epoch Times that the United States has 18 “bases or outposts” in addition to Camp Lemonnier and Ascension Island on the continent.
Alex Vines, director of the Africa Programme at the UK think tank Chatham House, said the Chinese foreign minister’s recent visit to coastal African countries is stirring speculation that Beijing is planning to build a second military base on the continent.
“It’s worth noting that every one of these countries is coastal but, of course, China’s long-term strategy remains unclear,” Mr. Vines told The Epoch Times.
The high-level Chinese visit comes at a time that has seen the withdrawal of French troops from West Africa and the Sahel region and a corresponding surge in terror-related deaths.
He described the facility as “one of the U.S. military’s biggest investments” in Africa.
“But it has ... been out of action since the coup [on July 26, 2023]. There’s chatter that the U.S. Army wants to have a presence in other parts of West Africa, and maybe [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken talked about this when he recently met leaders in Angola, Ivory Coast, Cabo Verde, and Nigeria,” Mr. Heitman said.
He said the UK’s ongoing military presence in Kenya was also “by no means” certain.
“You can bet China’s watching these developments closely, to see if the Americans and the British will follow the French and exit the African arena, and that would be the ideal time for China to build on its existing systems and existing single base,” Mr. Heitman said.
China opened its first, and so far only, military base in Africa in Djibouti in 2017.
“The overt goals of this installation are anti-piracy and freedom of navigation, part of a strategy aimed at securing trade corridors alongside developing alternatives such as the longer but less-contested Mozambique–South Africa route,” Mr. Vines said.
Other nations, including the United States, also maintain military bases in Djibouti for these reasons. Washington also uses its installation in Djibouti to launch strikes on the al-Shabaab terror organization in neighboring Somalia.
Mr. Vines said the current attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi extremists on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and a renewed attack by pirates on a vessel in the waters off Somalia had “once again validated the strategic value” of Djibouti.
Ms. Makhulu suggested that China’s potential military expansion in Africa could be influenced by past events, such as when an outbreak of conflict in oil-rich Libya in 2011 left about 35,000 Chinese workers stranded.
“With the many thousands of Chinese now on the ground in Africa, working on megaprojects and on mines in some pretty dangerous places, it’s feasible that the government of China could use that to justify the construction of another major military base in Africa,” she said.
“You can bet the next crisis that will endanger Chinese workers is just around the corner, and Beijing doesn’t want another PR disaster like [what] happened in Libya.”
Mr. Vines doesn’t think Beijing is “quite ready” to establish another major military base in Africa.
“It’s more likely that China will seek to expand the existing civilian port infrastructure and build dual-use facilities in African ports that it has invested in. China would upgrade harbors to allow the Chinese navy to use them, in addition to China’s commercial vessels,” he said.
Mr. Heitman said it was also likely that rather than invest in a military base “just yet,” China would increase its “professional military education” of African security forces.
“China’s Communist Party wants to win hearts and minds in Africa, and if it wins the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of African police and army officers ... well, that’s a big win,” he said.
Paul Nantulya, an expert in Africa–China relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees its training of African police and soldiers as “an opportunity to promote China’s governance model while deepening ties to Africa’s ruling political parties.”
He told The Epoch Times: “China has this term called ‘military-political work.’ This term shows the CCP has no problem broadcasting the fact that it uses the PLA to stay in power.
“‘Military-political work’ describes all the activities of the PLA to shape the civilian environment to achieve political, ideological, and military objectives set by the CCP, and Beijing is actively exporting this model to Africa, by means of its ‘political-military education’ to African security forces.”
Mr. Nantulya pointed out that the Nanjing Army Command College’s African alumni included 10 defense chiefs, eight defense ministers, and several former presidents, including Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, João Bernardo Vieira of Guinea-Bissau, and Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania.
None of these were known for their adherence to democratic principles, but Mr. Heitman said they “paled by comparison” with two current presidents schooled at the same institution, namely Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe.
Both are alleged to have committed widespread human rights atrocities, including torturing and murdering political opponents.
Mr. Nantulya said 94 Mozambican senior officers had studied in Nanjing, including Maputo’s longest-serving defense chief, Gen. Lagos Lidimo, as have their counterparts in Angola, Cameroon, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
In 2024, thousands of African military officers would receive instruction at facilities run by the CCP’s Central Military Commission, according to Mr. Nantulya.
The major difference between the military training provided by Western forces to Africans and that given by China is “simple,” according to Mr. Heitman.
“The United States, for example, trains African soldiers to confront external enemies. China trains African soldiers to, in effect, oppress and oppose their own people,” he said.
Mr. Nantulya took it further.
“The PLA adheres to the principle of absolute party control of the military, or ‘the party commands the gun,’” he said.
“The CCP itself admits that this is how it has retained power since 1949.
“The PLA is not a national army of the type described in most African constitutions and laws governing the armed forces. It is a ‘political army’ and the backbone of the CCP.
“Uniformed members are loyal to the party and custodians of its values, history, and spirit, not to the constitution, government, or state.
“The CCP is above all three.”
According to his research, 50 of Africa’s 54 countries participate regularly in Chinese “political-military education.”
A senior South African National Defense Force officer told The Epoch Times: “We’d love to send our officers to Westpoint because the training there is far superior. But the simple fact is that China’s offering more training opportunities than anyone else.”
In the 1990s, during a wave of democracy, African countries—even those governed by former liberation movements in which it was the norm for political parties to control armies—adopted new models that removed militaries from party politics and transferred their allegiance to a constitution.
But democracy had declined in Africa over the past decade, and China’s “party-army model” was increasingly attractive to parties “focused on regime survival,” according to Mr. Nantulya.
“They will likely use their engagements with China to ‘relearn’ the techniques that have kept the CCP in power and enabled it to control the PLA, the world’s largest army, in ways that ensure their perpetual rule,” he said.
