Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2016 | Page 87
Global Security and Intelligence Studies - Volume 2, Number 1 - Fall 2016
Is China Playing a Contradictory Role in Africa?
Security Implications of its Arms Sales and Peacekeeping
Earl Conteh-Morgan A & Patti Weeks B
This article offers a critical analysis of the conflict and regional security
implications of one of the strategies (arms sales) utilized by China to expand
and consolidate its presence in Africa. This worrying trend is juxtaposed
against its equally increasing peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities in
post-conflict states within the continent. The analysis, accordingly, argues
that the simultaneous growth in the scope of arms transfers and increase in
contributions to peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities is tantamount to
a contradictory policy toward Africa. Arms sales to African states encourage
some incumbent regimes to maintain their despotic and oppressive rule thereby
increasing the probability of violent conflicts between regimes and opposition
groups. Small arms also prolong civil wars because of the easy access to them.
While Chinese arms have been implicated in many conflicts in Africa, China
at the same time is also enhancing African Union peacekeeping activities
through generous financial donations as well as participation in humanitarian
assistance, national police training, and resettlement of ex-combatants, among
other activities. The question is, why does China pursue these seemingly
antithetical policies within Africa? Or, why does China play this contradictory
role contrary to its narrative of noninterference in the internal affairs of other
states?
Keywords: China, Africa, Arms Sales, Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding.
Introduction
China’s growing presence in Africa has spawned many explanations of its
political, economic cultural and other activities in the continent. A good
deal of its interactions with African states involves arms sales and support
for peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities. In its dealings with African states it
deliberately tries to set itself apart from the West’s record of colonial rule and exploitation
of the continent. China constantly reiterates and underscores its foreign policy of noninterference
in the affairs of African states. Nonetheless, it has not been able to escape
the lure of the benefits that are associated with arms sales to Africa, plus its negative
consequences, as well as the geopolitical ties that it enhances between China and Africa.
Accordingly, the objective of this article is to analyze China’s seemingly contradictory
A
Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, University of South Florida
B
Adjunct Professor, Department of History and Political Science, University of South Florida
doi: 10.18278/gsis.2.1.6
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