China's Africa Security Strategy: Training, Arms, and Political Influence
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Hello and welcome to another edition of the China in Africa podcast, a proud member of the Seneca Podcast Network. I'm Eric Olander, and as always, I'm joined by CGSP's managing editor, Kobus Venstaden. As always, in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa, a very good afternoon to you, Kobus. Good afternoon.

- Kobus, it has been a very busy week in the China-Africa space, but you wouldn't really know it if you were following mainstream international media because it's just not getting any coverage now. You would never know that in a city called Changsha in central Hunan province in China, there was a huge event that took place last week and wrapped up last Sunday. The fourth China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo was there, $11.4 billion in deals.

According to the organizers, that was a 46% increase in terms of the number of projects and an 11% increase in the value of those deals. This is a very big deal. And Kobus, I think what's so interesting is that it comes at a time

when there is a very stark contrast between how the United States is engaging Africa and how China is engaging Africa. And the United States says it wants to focus on business, transaction, and deals. Here we have an example.

of where billions of dollars of deals were signed in about a week long period. This is again the fourth time they've done this. Interesting that they've also done it in Hunan province. Many people do not know where Hunan province is. You may know it if you live in the United States and you eat Chinese food and you'll see Hunan Palace or Hunan, they have a lot of Chinese restaurants, Hunan, very spicy food, but it is also one of the major hubs

of the China-Africa relationship. And so not surprising if you follow this space closely that this event took place there. But Kobus, give us a rundown of what happened in Hunan over the last week at the Expo, and why do you think it's important? So for context, one of the reasons why this Expo took place in Hunan is because it's

being set up as one of China's biggest centers for African trade, but particularly for African agricultural trade. So there's a host of different facilities in Hunan, like including like honey, beneficiation centers, cocoa, like,

trading centers, like currency clearing centers and so on. It's a lot of different kind of like hardware to facilitate trade from Africa. And that's connected to a lot of logistics routes, like overland and overseas logistics routes to boost imports. And aviation routes. Remember, there's the Addis Ababa-Tangshah Air Bridge, Ethiopian Airlines is between those two. Yeah. So all of this is set up, you know, in order to boost trade. And what, what,

What happened at the Expo, in addition to all of these deals you mentioned, was that China also announced that they are scrapping all tariffs from African countries with which they have ties. This excludes Eswatini, the one African country that still maintains ties with Taiwan. But for all of the other African countries, there's now zero tariffs on the imports. And as people like us have pointed out, that doesn't necessarily boost trade immediately because a lot of the barriers are non-tariff barriers.

So particularly China has very stringent sanitary requirements to avoid kind of, you know, crop-borne pests being imported into the country. So what's interesting is that they also coupled this zero-tariff treatment with a bunch of new initiatives that's going to be helping the poorest group of African countries, the lowest-income African countries, to get through all of this inspection and quarantine and different kinds of different kind of other kind of barriers to imports.

So we will hopefully see greater numbers of African imports, agricultural imports to China on the back of this expo. And it also comes... Maybe. Maybe. It comes, of course, as while the US is talking, you know, it's like the message of trade, not aid, has been very prominent in the Trump administration. But we're also seeing rumors. The first was the announcement of a certain number of African countries that have been put

put under a travel ban and rumors of a significant increase of those countries possibly, you know, which makes one wonder like where these trade deals are going to happen, maybe in international waters, you know. But, you know, as the U.S. is kind of squeezing trade, China's presenting itself as this kind of like newly expanded kind of trade partner to Africa.

Yeah, I mean, like this expo, if the United States wants to do anything to facilitate deals, these kinds of exports actually work. So there were 2100 domestic and foreign companies that were at this expo, 764 exhibitors.

from 43 African countries. Now, if the United States does in fact go through with some of the rumored, again, it's only rumors right now, rumored travel bans that would include more than a dozen additional African countries, that's going to make it very difficult for them to do this kind of business, which does require a lot of face-to-face engagement. And so it's going to be very interesting. I wrote a column last week when the tariff news came out, and I said the bigger challenge is

is not tariffs. Remember that 33 African countries already had tariff-free access into the Chinese market. The bigger problem for a lot of African countries exporting to China is what are you going to sell beyond extractives? So oil, mineral, and timber, the Chinese already buy in pretty large quantities from Africa. The bigger problem is if you want to move up the value chain, increase the value of those exports, you have to start processing something. And so the question is what's going to be sold? And does it make sense

for a region like Africa that imports $50 billion of food every year and that faces chronic food insecurity in many regions to be exporting food to China in agricultural products. Not sure that makes a lot of sense. So, but we'll keep an eye on it. Big event in Changsha.

I highly recommend that you take some time to read up on what happened, particularly if you're following US-Africa policy because in many ways, as I've said over and over on this show, the new US policy looks a lot like the old China policy, which again was very transactional and very deal-based, and there is no better example than what happened in Changsha. Let's move from economic engagement to security engagement.

And that is a very important topic, particularly as we look at the U.S.-Africa relationship, but more importantly in terms of how Chinese engagement and Chinese security cooperation with various African countries has changed a lot. One of the things that regular subscribers to our newsletter will know, because we follow this very closely, there are now Chinese

drones that are active in Libya, in Ethiopia, in the DRC, in Nigeria. The Chinese weapons manufacturer Norinco just signed a manufacturing deal to produce ammunition in Nigeria. We're seeing weapons sales across the continent increase. In fact, SIPRI, which is the Swedish nonprofit that follows international weapons sales around the world, now lists China as the largest arms provider to Africa. But that's not the only aspect

of Chinese security engagement with Africa. It's happening in training, it's happening with, you know, obviously there's the Djibouti base,

And so it's a very hot and interesting topic to look at right now. And that's why we were fascinated when our old friend of the show, Paul Nantulia, who's a research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, wrote a new article, China Widening Its Influence in Africa Through Expanded Security Arrangements. We were eager to get him on the show to talk about this. And he was gracious enough to join us very early in the morning in D.C. So a very good morning to you, Paul, and welcome back to the program.

Morning, Eric. It's a pleasure to be back on the show. And good morning, Corbis. I'm very jealous. I would love to be in sunny Cape Town. I lived there for many years. Well, is Cape Town that sunny these days? Yeah.

I was about to say, I thought you were going to say out here in Southeast Asia. It's a little sunnier out here in Southeast Asia than it is where COPUS is these days in the wintertime. But you got to like humidity if you want to come out here. So Paul, obviously you follow the security relationship between China and Africa, and it's something you've been following more closely than pretty much anybody else out there.

You've been following it for as long as we've known each other, which is now going into our second decade. Talk to me a little bit about what's new, what's changing. We've heard about trainings. We obviously have the base in Djibouti. We've got the weapon sales.

Talk to us a little bit about what's changing now. And you're talking about this widening influence. What's the evolution? So it's the defense institution building, defense relations, military cooperation has always been an element of Chinese engagement in Africa. I think there was a bit of a transition from the 1950s and 60s, you know, when China was mostly involved in training troops

African freedom liberation movements. I mean, the figures that have covered this period of Chinese engagement in Africa put the figure at about 10,000 to 11,000 African guerrillas from different movements. Many of them are still in power, received training in the People's Republic of China. But then at the same time, China deployed quite a number of military trainers

advisors to the African continent to provide this training on the ground as well. Right? So that, in a way, was a form of

security assistance, quote unquote. This was really dominant. And then after these countries became independent, the strategy changed to helping them build national armies and the military academies, a lot of them which have historical relationships with different African countries. It's quite interesting to see that different countries have relationships with different historical relationships with different types of Chinese military institutions.

So Army Command College in Anjin, for instance, has a very special relationship with Namibia, with Mozambique.

with countries like South Africa, Dalyan Naval Academy has a very, very special relationship with Tanzania. You know, they've been training the Tanzanian military since the 1960s and so on, right? So it's very granular in terms of the relationships that African countries have built. But right now, it's much bigger because... Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, help us understand what's currently happening. Yes, it's much bigger because, right, you know, since 2012, the 2012, 2013, 2014, the...

Chinese have been training more African senior officers than all the other industrialized countries combined. It's quite a big number. You know, you're talking of the peak of it was 2,000 officers plus. They've been able to sustain that. It dropped during COVID. So this in-person training was huge.

was all but suspended. And then what the Chinese were doing was basically virtual, you know, these virtual workshops and stuff like that with different African militaries. But that picked up. I mean, if you look at the roadmap, you know, the roadmap, the current roadmap of FOCAC that came out of the FOCAC summit of last year, it's now gone up. So, you know, they've come up with a plan to train 6,500 over the next three years. 6,500, that is senior officers, but then also early...

early career officers and junior officers. And we saw that in Beijing about a month ago, you know, over a hundred rising officers from over 40 African countries went on a 10-day familiarization tour in China. You know, they went to the different provinces, they went to the different schools. It was a huge marketing endeavor.

And China was basically sending a signal that they want to go lower down the rungs to begin targeting enlisted junior officers and so on to develop those sorts of relationships with them going forward. So this has become a major piece of the military-to-military relationship. Of course, earlier in the show, you mentioned the activities of Norinco and Polytechnologies in helping African countries develop defense industries. This is something that was not very prominent, but it's now become a very...

key component of Chinese military engagement. You know, the Algerians and the Chinese are collaborating on a submarine, you know, manufacturing. The Ugandans are doing it with unmanned aerial vehicles and so on. You've got similar programs in Tanzania, in Sudan. So defense institution building has become a key piece of it, in addition to the weapon sales. I mean, initially it was small arms and light weapons, but now you're looking at things like

infantry fighting vehicles, you're looking at tanks, you're looking at advanced missile systems. Surface-to-air missiles, frigates, the whole range of things, yeah. A whole range. I mean, Namibia recently took delivery of major military transports, which are still in service in the PLA. We didn't see this before. Initially, I mean, African countries were basically importing products from China that were approved for export. These were export versions.

And most of that equipment was not in service in the PLA. But now, over the last five years, you're now starting to see African countries acquire capabilities that are in service in the PLA. This is something that hasn't really received a lot of attention policy-wise and also in the media. But I think it represents a major shift in Chinese military engagement in Africa.

So to put that in a global context, we've also, we've also obviously seen a lot of discussion in, you know, following the conflict between India and Pakistan about the use, the use of Chinese weapons in that conflict. And with it, you know, the increasing kind of discussion about the possible sales of upcoming, as you say, like new and operational kind of like equipment, you know, that are currently being used by the PLA to other, to other kind of

So what has changed? Are we seeing the result of a shift in policy and approach within China? And is that coming from the PLA? Is it coming from the parties? Is it coming from the arms industry? How are those different actors working together in relation to this shift?

A huge part of it is coming from the defense companies, right? So Norinco, they're not just looking at the bottom line. They're also taking serious political directives from the Central Military Commission, which of course is a party structure, and also the Ministry of Defense. So image becomes very important. Reputation becomes very important because the Chinese have been very, very...

attentive to the criticism that many African countries have concerning the durability of the defense packages that they're getting from the PRC. So we've seen, for instance, the Nigerians, right? So Norinco has had a multi-year strategic defense package with Nigeria, right? Which is aimed at helping them

combat the Boko Haram insurgency. But there have been complaints about the durability of some of this weaponry, such as the attack helicopters and so on. So this is being worked into the system in Beijing. And particularly after Russia was kind of edged out due to the sanctions and the

the constraints in terms of access African countries for export credits from Russian defense companies, Chinese have shown that they're paying much, much closer attention to the durability of their systems and stuff like that. So this is the reason why you're starting to see that kind of shift. I mean, the Y9 platform, right, that I mentioned earlier, that the Namibians are

Right.

for a military that wants to increasingly be seen as a military that has global interest and which is just as capable as, for instance, the UK military or the US military, for instance.

Well, I wonder if that is a slightly dated perception of Chinese hardware. And I remember what you're talking about in terms of the Nigerians, and that was a few years ago. What we saw in Pakistan was the importance of a total ecosystem where data interacted with ground stations, interacted with AWACS, interacted with J-10 fighter jets, and everything was cohesive. And I think because of the role that data now plays in terms of

battlefield logistics, much more important and it's more difficult now for countries to assemble kits from five countries, six countries and put them together because the interoperability for data is going to be much more difficult. So the Chinese are probably gonna start coming to African countries much the same way they did with Huawei, where you have in smaller countries, you know, they don't have a lot of diversity in their 5G stack, they take all Huawei.

And just like 81% of Pakistan's military procurement comes from China, and yet that all kind of fit together nicely, you're starting to see this big sales push in West Africa in particular. So I'm interested that you brought up the Norinco. I also want to bring up the fact that last month, the head of

CATIC, which is the, let me just get this, the China National Aerotechnology Import and Export Corporation, one of these no-name companies that nobody's ever heard of, but they make the J-10 fighter jet, the J-10C fighter jet. They are a full-service arms procurement company, and they were with the Ghanaian Navy. And so you're seeing this big sales push. So I think it's interesting that you're talking about how a lot of this is being driven by Chinese weapons companies. But let's talk a little bit about China.

the framework that this engagement's happening under. And in your article, you talked about the Global Security Initiative. This is one of several initiatives under the Community for Common Destiny umbrella that Xi Jinping has been rolling out. We've got the GCI, which is the Global Civilization Initiative, which is generally focused on human rights. We've got the Global Development Initiative, which is really focused on breaking or challenging the Washington Consensus on Development Finance. And then

You've got the Global Security Initiative. How does the GSI factor into this? And are African countries actually taking this seriously and really signing up for it? Or are they just kind of nodding when the Chinese talk about it? You know, the GSI is one of those very, very typical of the Chinese government. One, you know, there's this push, and which is a longstanding push to kind of shape global norms.

to create new global institutions led by China, but with Chinese partners and so on, to kind of reshape in different aspects the global architecture, global conversations, global debates in terms of security, what constitutes security and so on.

there's a sense that that's what great powers do. And given China's self-identification as an aspiring great power, there's a sense within the MOD in China, within the Ministry of Defense and the Central Military Commission, that China should be in a position to influence global security debates, concepts on peacekeeping operations, peace enforcement operations, and that sort of thing. So quite a bit of headway has been made in this regard, initially on the academic side. So

If you look at the Chinese National Defense University, they have a center for defense studies that coordinates numerous exchanges with professional military education institutions in different parts of the continent, different parts of Asia, Latin America, and so on, where they bring these people together to actually talk about what we're talking about today. What do Africans get out of it?

though? I mean, what's the point for, I mean, I see for the Chinese side wanting to reconfigure the global security infrastructure away from the U.S., but what does Kenya or Senegal get out of it? It's part of a total package. It's part of a total package because if you're looking for assistance, you know, with a defense system, if you want to import a particular defense system,

And you figured out that in terms of cost, in terms of availability, in terms of the speed with which these capabilities can be put together and capacities that you can develop within your own defense industry. If you conclude that China is basically your go-to supplier, then one of the things that you're going to do is you're going to want China to see you as...

a partner, right, that can be enlisted in supporting these global efforts that China is trying to push, right? So there's an element of self-interest on the African side, right? You know, you want to be seen to be working with China and to be working alongside China. So it's not just a push that's coming from the Chinese side. There are also calculations that African countries are making, right, in terms of their rhetoric and also in terms of the degree to which

they enlist themselves or they allow themselves to be enlisted in these global maneuvers, right? In these global efforts. So what we've seen, for instance, with the GSI is that it started out as a very broad, sort of like very symbolic, it wasn't very clear initiative that was out there. But what has become very clear? I mean, if you read the MOUs

that are being concluded between African ministries of defense and Chinese institutions, you know, the GSI has become very concrete in terms of it's developing as a basic framework for security cooperation between China and African countries. So the GSI has become really front and center. And whereas... I just don't understand how, though. I hear what you're saying. I hear academic exchanges saying,

I hear that the African side goes along with it because, you know, why not? Okay. I don't know if they really believe in it, but what does it mean practically and tangibly? I understand the U S alliance system. I understand the U S networks. I understand ACUS, the quad, the squad. Those all make sense. What is the GSI in an African context?

The GSI in an African context is basically when a concept has been introduced, right, regardless of who introduces it, it takes time, right? You have the norming, then you have the shaping, then you have the institutionalization, right? And then it develops into a field, right? So this is not something that the Chinese have developed looking at it from a short-term perspective. It's really they're following that arc.

You know, you're introducing a concept, you're socializing it. It becomes part of your professional military education. It becomes part of your curriculum. And then it also becomes part of, you know, the kind of sales that you're undertaking, right? Remember that China is not selling the same things

to all these 53 different African countries, right? You know, some of it is maritime oriented. If you look at what's happening with the Gulf of Guinea, for instance, right? There is a separate defense dialogue between China and Gulf of Guinea commanders, naval commanders, and so on, right? Which is completely separate from what the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum is doing, for instance, with Southern African militaries, right? So you're looking at all these different components, right?

which are basically different pieces of what China is trying to build as the Global Security Initiative, which is trying to basically distinguish Chinese assistance and Chinese defense engagements from the defense engagements that the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries have been doing on the African continent. So when we think GSI, we need to think of it from a long-term perspective in mind.

Yeah, Kobus, this is something you've been talking about for a number of years about the power of norm setting. And we have to remember that it took the United States probably 10, 15 years after the end of World War II to really establish these norms. So we're still in the early stages of what the Chinese are trying to do with the GSI, GCI, GDI initiative. So interesting what Paul's saying, but I'd be curious to get your take on this, Kobus. I'm very much not a security expert, but I think we're seeing a kind of a similar shift happening in

in relation to development thinking under the GDI, I think, you know, where it's not particularly kind of a Chinese recipe or even a Chinese system that's being, you know, kind of implemented, but it's a kind of a field of cooperation and a space for coordination, right?

kind of co-created, but where Chinese ideas and Chinese systems play a very leading role. Paul, in that context, obviously you engage with African military officials a lot and over a long time. Can you...

Start now, after several years, can you start pointing to ways that military culture or, you know, ways of doing things in African militaries are starting to shift in relation to this ongoing kind of like dovetailing and working with Chinese actors?

Obviously, there are variations across the board, right? So again, one has to be very granular in terms of looking at individual, what's happening with individual militaries. If you look at Tanzania, for instance, the TPDF, the TPDF order of battle, its doctrine, right? Not just global doctrine, but doctrine of the services. So the naval doctrine, you know, the land warfare and so on. If you look at the culture, it's heavily inspired by

by the PLA, by China's People's Liberation Army. And the reason for that is Tanzania has a very special history with the PLA, namely after the coup attempt in 1964, just at the turn of independence in Tanzania, the Tanzanian leadership. So there were coups in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania by the King's African Rifles. This was the colonial force, the colonial force that was now transitioning to become a national military. What is interesting is that the Kenyans and Ugandans

Their approach was basically to recall the British to help them rebuild their militaries. The Tanzanians went in the opposite direction. They suspended, actually for a while, Tanzania did not have a national army. So they basically disbanded the entire military. And then they terminated their training partnerships with Canada, with East Germany, with the Soviet Union, okay, and with the UK.

and invited the Chinese, invited the PLA to help build their military from scratch. And that has been an uninterrupted relationship, right, that Tanzania has had with the Chinese to the present day.

So when you look at countries like Tanzania, it's very distinct. When you look at the military, when you look at how it conducts itself and so on, there's heavy, heavy Chinese influence. With other militaries, Namibia, there's a heavy comparison with Namibia, with Zimbabwe to some extent as well. Ethiopia, the influence...

Well, Emerson Menengagwa, the president of Zimbabwe, he's a graduate of one of the military academies in China. Yes, yes, as are many Zimbabwean commanders. And, you know, both, you know, going through, although, of course, Zimbabwe also had a very strong relationship with the U.K.,

But the relationship with Chinese was very strong. You look at all these militaries and so on. So you do have examples, right? You know, up and down the continent where you can actually see, you know, the service culture, the doctrine and so on, you know, which is heavily inspired by China, right? I mean, militaries like Ghana, for instance, you know, even Nigeria to some extent, right? So it's basically various militaries.

various militaries on the continent. But at the same time, the Chinese have been, because of course the PLA is a force that takes its directives from the party, right? And so the role of political education, political training, political komitsa, you have political komitsa system within the PLA where political komitsas are of equal rank and authority as the military commanders. Now, many African militaries have similar structures, but in different ways, right? Those elements tend to be reinforced, right?

in the military training that they're receiving in China. So, you know, countries like Angola, countries like Mozambique, countries like Uganda, Uganda still has a very strong military commissar system, right? Even though it continues to train with Western militaries. So you do have certain countries that have a similar disposition, right? Especially those countries that are very concerned with the regime survival and, you know, the tactics and techniques that the Chinese Communist Party has used to

to control the world's largest conventional force without ever having a serious risk of coup d'etat is something that many African countries find attractive, particularly those countries that are very, very concerned with regime survival. So these are the different ways in which, you know, these ethos, the cultures and the traditions of the PLA are being inculcated on the African continent.

Well, let's pick up there on the party-to-party side. And you mentioned that in your paper, it's very important. And again, just a reminder to everybody that

The People's Liberation Army is unlike that of other major powers, whereas in the United States and Europe, the military works under the command of the state. In China, the military is the armed wing of the Communist Party. And so the Communist Party is the supreme political entity in China. The state is actually subservient to the party, and that makes it rather unique in terms of major powers.

Now, you talked about in your paper that because this is a strong party-led system in China, it's been very effective at helping to lead party-to-party ties in Africa. And I think it's important to distinguish between both incumbent parties, but also those that are out of power as well. And the Chinese have been very effective at fostering relations there.

with all sorts of different parties. I just want to bring up a point that you and I were talking about many years ago, the Ethiopian civil war, and we were talking about the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the TPLF. And one of the observations you made was that a lot of the commanders there were trained in China too, which is really amazing that it's happening on all sides, that they have this very deep relationship with various factions and parties and whatnot. How does the PLA's

party relationship and party structure impact its party relations in China, in Africa? No, that is very interesting. I mean, I've talked to quite a number of, back in the day and so on, folks from the TPLF on the military side, on the political side. Not only was China a very important reference point, a lot of them speak very good Chinese.

And this is something, you know, Ethiopia is one of those countries that really understudied the Chinese system, both in terms of political economy. They were also students of China's reform and opening up.

to try and figure how you move from a centralized system to a system where the party still is firmly in place, but then you're opening up, you're privatizing and so on. Ethiopia was a very serious, they made a very, very serious effort to systematically study this system and adapt it to their circumstance. Tanzania did something similar. Kenya is also one of those countries that has really, really increased its outreach to the PLA and to other places. But

Look, when you look at the PLA and when you look at the course offerings, right, these African officers that train in Chinese military institutions, number one, the PLA has got hundreds of...

its own political front organizations, right? Hundreds of them. And many of them are involved in professional military education and training. Some of them even are part of the directing staff in these various institutions, right? So the political content, the political and ideological content, it runs through the entire training experience within the PLA. So that's one element.

The other element is every Chinese military institution, Chinese professional military education institution, you know, they've got a dual structure. So you have the military education and training, right? Military skills, military hardware, so on, military doctrine and so on, right? Then you have the political side.

right? So every academy is going to have a political academy, right? So you're going to have a political school at the National Defense University. You're going to have a political school at the Army Command College Nanjing, Dalian Naval Academy, and so on, you know, the Shandong Military Institute. You're going to have political schools, the Academy of Military Science, right? So when these African officers partake of that, right, that aspect of it in terms of how

politics and the military interact and how the CCP and the PLA interact, that symbiotic relationship between the PLA and the CCP, it runs through the entire system. And you do have African officers, right? Every time you look at the Pudong, for instance, the college, it was a political school in Shanghai.

that has now become sort of like it's trying to model itself around the Kennedy School of Government and stuff like that, but it's essentially a political college. Big number of African officers attend these programs as well. South Sudan, Senegal, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Cabo Verde, Sierra Leone, name it.

you're going to have classes for these military officers attending a college like that, which exists to basically perpetuate the political ideology and that symbiotic relationship that we're talking about. So it's done through front organizations. Every time you see a PLA delegation visit an African country, they will always be the uniformed, well, they're all uniformed, but they will always be

the political office of that particular department that will be part of that delegation. So if you look at the recent exercise that China conducted with Egypt, right, this was between the two air forces. It was a major exercise, right? There were political, you know, there were political, if you look at how it was reported in the PLA Daily and in the Winged Missiles Journal and all these military publications in China that assessed that

exercise, there were political comissars that were part of that program, that were part of that exercise. If you look at the exercise that the Tanzanians and the Mozambicans conducted with the PLA ahead of the FOKAK summit last year, again, a huge part of that contingent that was part of that exercise, the PLA contingent that was part of that exercise, were coming from the political

of the various units that deployed in Tanzania, right? So the Joint Strategic Support Force, for instance, right? Because this was another major exercise, right? It had its political cadre, right? So all the respective political forces

officers of the departments that were involved, Navy, Army, Air Force, and so on, were part of that exercise, right? So again, this is another way in which you see that symbiotic relationship come through. What the Chinese will say is, the argument they make is that they're not promoting it. What they're saying is those African countries that are willing to

to go that direction, will have access to these models and implement these models in a way that they see fit. This is the argument that comes from the Chinese MOD. And indeed, when I was in Beijing last year, part of those interactions were with folks from the MOD. And this is basically what they're saying. They say that, look, we're not imposing anything, but those countries that are willing, those countries that have that history and which believe

That this symbiotic relationship between a ruling party and the military, those that think of that as being important, you know, they will have an opportunity to kind of look at what China is doing and to see if they can adapt it to their own experience. So that's the argument that comes from the Chinese side. So, yeah.

This is a very, very kind of a high level question. Are you starting to see a net effect on peace and security in Africa around this? Because, you know, kind of like we cover the stuff not nearly as closely as you do, but like, you know, kind of we do kind of like pick up on, oh, like Algeria is buying a lot of weapons. Oh, you know, kind of a lot of like new weapons manufacturing happening in Africa. How does that change?

kind of then translate into the actual, into shifts in the actual peace and security landscape in Africa. And does it always fall into the right hands or does it sometimes, some of what Kobus is talking about, fall into maybe the wrong hands? Sometimes clearly it falls into the wrong hands, some of these weapons, right? So in many of these conflicts, and I think I cite some in my report, places like Darfur and, you know, the Great Lakes region, places like the DRC in the Sahel as well, Chinese, you know, weaponry has been found in the hands of

of some of these groups. I suppose, you know, some of it is captured from government forces and so on. And again, it's also part of a logistics problem, problems to do with registration of equipment and stuff like that, right? So yes, there are unintended consequences of security cooperation that the Chinese are going to have to find a way of dealing with because, of course, it creates reputational problems. But over and above that, I think what, you know, to get to Kobus's question, which is a great question, you do have

You know, we're starting to see an alignment between African countries' security, you know, the threats that African countries feel they're facing and the type of equipment they're getting from the Chinese, right? So with Nigeria, for instance, the Chinese, the Norinco supplies to Nigeria have been oriented towards counterinsurgency operations, right? So in terms of the surveillance equipment, intelligence equipment, you know, the light equipment,

infantry fighting vehicles and the combat helicopters and so on. This is the kind of hardware that they've been focused on. You look at a country like Cameroon, right? Most of their supplies from China have been in the naval and maritime safety and security area, right?

Because, you know, Cameroon is one of those countries that has been trying to, you know, with the situation in the Gulf of Guinea, Cameroon is one of those countries that indeed has also played a leading role in trying to set up a maritime safety and security architecture for the Gulf of Guinea. So a lot of their Chinese hardware is

is directed towards that, you know, amphibious equipment, boats, patrol boats and stuff like that. And what is interesting with Cameroon is that they send their sailors. So when they make a purchase, right, they will send their sailors to the shipyards in China as part of the technology transfer, right? And then they will account

will accompany the delivery of that equipment back into Cameroonian waters and stuff like that. So we're starting to see that as well. And I guess, you know, looking at it from an African perspective. And to go back to the point that I made earlier, the purchases that these countries are making, it varies across the board. You know, they're not purchasing the same things.

Well, two points that I'd be interested to get your take on. Number one is that a lot of African militaries we've heard over the years have said they would like to purchase U.S. weapon systems, but there's so many restrictions. There's looking at whether human rights conditions, there's looking at, you know, and they've just said it's not possible to get the clearances from the United States. So they go to the Chinese simply because they can't get to the United States. And the financing also is different as well. And then also just one important point that just because a Chinese droid

drone or weapon system shows up in Africa does not mean it was brought there by the Chinese. So the UAE in particular has been shipping Chinese-made drones, for example, into the Ethiopian conflict and into Libya. So these weapons are coming from other sources beyond just African governments and showing up on the battlefields in Africa. Very quickly, last thoughts before we let you go.

Yes, it's a growing area. I think China initially as a port of second call is really becoming a port of first call in the sense that, again, the export controls are less stringent. The equipment, even the advanced equipment, is still relatively more affordable, right? And then they have flexible, you know, repayment systems and stuff like that, right? So it comes with that. And, you know, in as much as, you know, you continue to hear complaints about the quality of the equipment, affordability is

cost and the political conditionalities are not as stringent. China has been able to position itself. But having said that, one of the things that we find is even on the professional military education side, African officers generally consider, for instance, U.S. professional military education to be much more rigorous and

to be more analytically sound. You know, they have an opportunity, for instance, in class to challenge their professors and stuff like that. And it's seen qualifications, a UK qualification, a US qualification, takes one's career a very, very long way, even after retirement, right? However, however, the Chinese are offering, you know, just to quote

One director of training of an African military that I interviewed for the study that I put out on this topic about a year ago or so, they're basically saying, look, we want to send our best and brightest.

to the United States, to the UK, and, you know, to other places, New Zealand and so on. But if somebody shows up from the Army Command College in Nanjing and is giving me 150 slots over the next 18 months, that's where we're going to send our people because there's a need for training and there's a need for... Yeah. So, yes. With free airfare probably too thrown in. Yes, yes, yes. So, again...

Quality, quantity, so it's a balance that a lot of African countries are trying to exploit to their own advantage. The article is China Widening Its Influence in Africa Through Expanded Security Arrangements. We've got a link to it in the show notes.

It's really essential to read this right now as it's a nice parallel and a companion to what we've been talking about on the economic side, where there's a lot of things that are happening that are just not getting covered. And I think Paul really articulates beautifully the depth and breadth of the Chinese security relationships that are

showing no signs of slowing down in this era here, despite everything else that's going on in the world today. So Paul, thank you so much for taking the time to join us this morning. We really appreciate it. It's always fun to have you back on the show. We always learn so much and really appreciate your time.

No, likewise, likewise. It's always great. I love being on the show and, you know, I love your work. Every morning, it's the first thing I do every morning. Oh, we should tell more people. We need to get the thing out. Read your daily updates, you know. Oh, that's fantastic. Well, we appreciate that. So really, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kobus. I've always, always privileged and honored, you know, to share panels with you. So thank you so much.

Kobus, it's always a lot of fun to have Paul on the show because he's got this encyclopedic knowledge of China-Africa security. He's like a walking Google on these things. You cover so much ground. But as I was listening to him and hearing about these deepening security ties, I kept thinking about, is it going to cause a problem with the United States? One has to assume that this is not going to end well with the Trump administration. Consider the fact that Kenya is a major non-NATO ally

of the United States. And that's already really upset some in Congress. You know, in South Africa, the three-way naval exercises that South Africa had with Russia and China, not once but twice, really upset the Americans. And this deep U.S.-Africa security relationship feels like it could potentially be upset or challenged or in other ways just

you know, put in jeopardy if African countries continue to lean heavily into their security ties with China, particularly on things like the Global Security Initiative, which is really intended to challenge the American alliance system. And so I can see why people in Washington would be a little bit perturbed when they see all of this happening there and they think, okay, well, if that's the way you want to go, go, but you're not going to be able to rely on us.

Yeah, well, I guess China is setting itself up as an alternative source of a bunch of stuff, right? Kind of like of hardware, but also training, but also larger strategic thinking. So it is kind of emerging as an alternate source, multi-platform source, you know, for all of these different things. So, of course, I think from the African side, I think they felt comfortable.

I think by, you know, for a long time, you know, by different conditionalities, but also just by even though Africa obviously has a strong U.S. military presence and some African countries are, you know, occupy these ally positions, Africa was also not in a position to demand anything, right? Or to really kind of like set the course. Unlike some other U.S., like global South U.S. allies, like the Philippines, for example. You know, I think from the African side, they kind of felt that, you know,

a lot of them felt quite constrained. It would be interesting for me to see how the US reacts. But at the same time, I think the US is also at a very, is facing a lot of challenges on a lot of fronts at once. And Africa isn't the most prominent of those fronts. You know, so I can well also imagine that these kind of developments may well kind of fall off the table in DC and not particularly be part of the discussion there.

Yeah, and of course we did not talk about the issue of basing and the allegations that the United States continue to put forward about the Chinese desire, a reported desire to build a base in the West Coast of Africa. And the reason why we didn't do it is because there's nothing new. But I do want to draw people's attention to a fascinating column that came out from, and I'm going to hack the names here, Leonardo Jacopo and Maria Mazzucco at the Atlantic Council who wrote about China's basing quest in the Gulf,

pipe dreams or strategic reality, and they added one more argument for what the Chinese are looking for from their bases, which further undermines

the argument that the Chinese are looking for a base on the Atlantic coast of Africa. So they wrote, "Easy access to maritime choke points vital to China's economic and geopolitical interests is always a priority when selecting regions for bases." So that's why Djibouti makes sense. That's why the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, though the Chinese

say it's not official base, but the Chinese built it and Chinese warships have been there. But these are all next to vital choke points in global commerce that really makes sense that the Chinese would want. We do not have that on the west coast of Africa. So I think that's an interesting article. I'll put that in the show notes as well, building yet more evidence that this absurd notion that the Chinese are looking to build bases in West Africa is just, again, it's never been backed up. Government officials in the US have told me, they said, listen, we can't tell you what

we know, and therefore that ends the argument. And I go, okay, well, until you can make this information public, then there's nothing for us to go on to, and we're not going to just say, we'll trust you. We're done with that. We were over with that in 2003 with Iraq. And so the credibility of the United States government to say, just trust us,

I think, is gone. So if the United States wants to make a credible case that the Chinese are desiring to build a base in West Africa, either they have to make the information public or they have to withstand the cynicism that people like you and me bring to the topic. That's definitely so. I think one of the additional complications is, I think, like in a lot of kind of discussion, and I'm sure this maybe is different in closed rooms, but like in the kind of media discussions,

and public discussion that I pick up in relation to these kind of Chinese engagements as seen from the US. There's frequently a very, like a significant kind of flattening of recipient country priorities, right? Like it's frequently like, yeah, yeah, like whatever that kind of country, you know, wants, the Chinese kind of, you know, agenda will prevail, right? And there's a certain kind of like, there's certain kind of superpower logic there.

which I think tends to kind of like cause a kind of an oversimplification of the complexities on the ground. So you mentioned the real naval base in Cambodia, like which, you know, which the Chinese refurbished, which is, you know, which Chinese ships have been birthed at, you know, different times and, you know, kind of have used. But also the first official kind of visit there was by the Japanese Navy. Yeah.

And it's been visited by the Americans. The U.S. says Savannah was there. So what that says isn't that the Chinese don't have leverage on Cambodia, but that the Cambodians' own set of complexities that they bring to the table have to be fully considered.

And unfortunately, I think in a lot of this kind of discussion, particularly in relation to security engagement with Africa, it very quickly defaults to, oh, China is exporting its system. China is exporting authoritarianism. China is...

stamping its image on this kind of like blank slate that is Africa and very little engagement with the actual complexities of individual African countries and their priorities. So, you know, kind of unfortunately, you know, kind of like in a moment of kind of like global self kind of like rising up the ladder, these local complexities are getting more and more important.

And, you know, so there's a kind of an unwillingness, a larger kind of unwillingness to engage with what these complexities actually would be and what these countries actually want ends up leading to this kind of very pervasive flattening of, you know, kind of of the view, not only in D.C., but I think also in Europe. Yeah. Two other points that we didn't bring up in our conversation just because we didn't have time. One is the fact that the Chinese have been involved…

in the multinational anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia now, I think for going on 14 or 15 years, that's been, again, a rare point of collaboration between China and Western. And a huge success, by the way. And a very big success, but also a point of rare collaboration between Western and Chinese navies. And I think when we look for the vectors of possible cooperation, these types of joint patrols is one area that has a proven track record.

The other area that we didn't have a chance to talk to is that security cooperation is not just happening at the military level. More and more now we're looking at the police level, or in China they call it the Public Security Bureau. So there is growing challenge over the past several years of kidnappings of Chinese nationals in many African countries. Also, Chinese organized crime has been moving to Africa. In fact, we just ran a report this week by our China editor, Han Zhen,

who talked about how the scam centers that are being cracked down on here in Southeast Asia are now starting to find their way in parts of Africa. And that is going to be also a vector of police to police cooperation. So this is happening at multiple levels in the security matrix, not just at the

So I think when we look at security, we have to look at it more holistically than just officers and big guns. Absolutely. And this is a space where I, you know, kind of just having spent time in this discussion, I can immediately see how Western framings of this cooperation will be painted there.

very, very somberly. And while I think among many African publics, a lot of that will actually play relatively positively. Because the thing is, the level of public safety in China, the way that...

like women can walk by their own at, you know, at two in the morning, you know, kind of on a public road. That is Africa's holy grail, right? So in terms of just simply providing that level of kind of policing security, like China will find a very kind of receptive audience, I think, among many African publics. Yeah.

By the way, just as a longtime resident of Asia, that's not uniquely a Chinese phenomenon. People in Singapore will put their thousand dollar cell phones at a Starbucks to, they'll put it on the table to reserve the spot and then go wait in line. I can imagine somebody in Nigeria just being like, wait, what? You're putting, I mean, even Americans, we look at that and be like, that is crazy. Here in Southeast Asia, never a problem. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, it's really quite remarkable what-

And you get lazy living in this part of the world. You get really lazy, you know, like, oh, I'll just walk out at three in the morning or I'll go into any neighborhood I want or I'll go anywhere I want, I'll talk to anybody. And when I go back to the US, I always have to be a little bit aware that it's not quite the same. Last point, but on this question of, you were talking about how some people perceive this negatively, which is inevitable in this day and age, but there's a certain degree of hypocrisy here because on the one hand, for a long time,

there was an accusation towards the Chinese coming not just from the Americans but also from Europe as well that the Chinese were freeloading off the system and there wasn't burden sharing and they weren't contributing. And then when they started kind of stepping up their engagement with UN peacekeeping, and right now China is the largest contributor of peacekeeping forces among the P5 Security Council members, and then also the naval operations,

I've heard over and over again, and you have as well, that that is example of Chinese encroachment into the security space. And that is, you know, that's the reason why we have to confront China is because look at them. They're stepping up. They're expanding. And yet at the same time, there was this longtime accusation that they weren't doing enough and they were freeloading and they weren't contributing and they want the Chinese to be more present. So it feels a little bit

damned if you do, damned if you don't on one side. And again, not uniquely an American criticism, but it is an interesting kind of dynamic that's out there that the more they step up, the more they're going to get criticized, you know, so we'll, we'll leave it there. But anyway, that was a fascinating conversation. We, again, on our Global South podcast, we're going to be focusing a lot in the coming weeks on the Iran-Israel war with both Israeli perspectives and Gulf perspectives. So I hope you guys will check that out. And again,

You know, as we heard from Paul, he is a regular reader every morning, 6 a.m. Washington time. The newsletter that Kobus and I put out and the whole team in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East contributes to is something that we would love for you to join and to check it out. We've been talking a lot about the China literacy problems, and this China literacy issue is real. I mean, we were talking about this before we went on air that Donald Trump himself miscalculated

Xi Jinping's response in the trade war, because in my view, Kobus, he wasn't informed on Xi Jinping and how he would respond. I mean, there are real tangible consequences if you don't understand this phenomenon. And it never surprises me, Kobus, that

People just don't take this topic seriously. I mean, they just don't take it seriously. And I just, I mean, I don't know. I mean, we're trying our best to try and get it out there, but it is, and it's not uniquely an Africa problem. We've talked about China literacy in Africa for many years, but as you've noticed too, that it's in other regions as well. Yeah, it's pervasive. The thing is, you know, as China becomes a bigger, bigger player in various fields, it's

its own complexities are multiplying. You know, so it's not only that people don't have a baseline, which they frequently don't, but also that they're not catching up or they're keeping up with how quickly things are changing. You know, I mean, we're running flat out and we frequently can't keep up with how everything's changing, you know, and this is pretty much all we do. We're putting probably 20% of what we could in our newsletter every day and on our website. Yeah. And if we had a team that was, you know, 10 times larger, we'd be able to keep up. So,

And again, we have a larger team around the world looking at this than most governments do dedicated to what China's doing in the global south and even the large major governments. I mean, I am blown away that in every major European capital except one for the most part, there's not a dedicated team with China specialists looking at different parts of the world. Baffles me, just baffles me.

And that they're just not taking this seriously. I mean, I just don't get it. I don't get it that African foreign ministries don't have, you know, any number of these scholars who've come back from China who speak the language fluently, who get it, and creating real intelligence for their presidents and prime ministers on how to do things. I don't get it.

But anyway, we are trying our best to close that literacy gap. So if you are interested in this topic, go to chinaglobalsouth.com slash subscribe. If you are a student or teacher, email me eric at chinaglobalsouth.com and I will send you half-off links so that you can...

Join our growing community of readers around the world, including Paul in Washington. So for this edition of the show, Kobus and I will be back again next week with another episode of the China in Africa podcast. For Kobus van Staden in Cape Town, I'm Eric Olander. Thank you so much for listening and for watching. ♪

The discussion continues online. Follow the China Global South project on Blue Sky and X, a China GS project, or on YouTube at China Global South. And share your thoughts on today's show or head over to our website at ChinaGlobalSouth.com where you can subscribe to receive full access to more than 5,000 articles and podcasts. Once again, that's ChinaGlobalSouth.com.

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