Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2016 | Page 89

Is China Playing a Contradictory Role in Africa?
a developing country, it tends to bolster morale and a sense of independence and
autonomy in military hardware. In other words, a domestic arms production facility
reduces a country’s dependence on more developed countries. More arms production
autonomy inevitably means less dependence on major suppliers, at least, for small
arms or light weapons. Moreover, apart from the determination by African countries
to lessen dependence on Western suppliers, they also want to ensure reliability and
consistency of supply. The major arms suppliers often impose embargos on arms sales
to countries whose policies they find objectionable. For instance, the US often makes
human rights issues a key criterion in determining US military aid and sales. China, on
the other hand, does not use human rights and democracy as criteria for transferring
arms to African countries. Many resolutions are passed in the UN Security Council, or
by Western governments barring the sale of weapons to governments engaged in wars
against rebel groups or neighboring states. Furthermore, China’s Africa policy is also
one that provides benefits and employment opportunities for skilled Chinese citizens
(Baah and Jauch 2009; Lynch 2012). This is an example of China’s geo-economic
objective in Africa. By establishing arms factories, and training Africans to use the
more sophisticated weapons they supply, skilled Chinese such as scientists, engineers,
and industrial managers are offered more opportunities for applying their skills and
knowledge. The interaction between African and Chinese skilled workers, it is hoped,
would produce better understanding between the two in competition with the West. In
addition, China’s arms industry, just as the arms industries of other nations, is designed
to be both a military and economic asset. For an arms industry to be sustainable it
has to be profitable, thus the need for arms exports to other nations. The revenue
generated from arms exports feeds into research and development for new and better
weapons systems. This is especially the case with China where the government with
its State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is the key, if not the sole, exporter of weapons
to developing countries (SIPRI 2011). Arms exports are therefore an economic
imperative, and a sine qua non for maintaining an arms industry. Besides, Chinese
arms find a ready market in some African countries that consider themselves, or would
like to be perceived as regional influentials. Countries such as Nigeria in West Africa,
Kenya in East Africa, or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and South Africa,
among others, fall into this category. Still others import Chinese arms in order to feed
the conflicts in the DRC, Sudan, Central African Republic, among others. While arms
transfers during the Cold War were predicated largely on the need to supply warring
factions in civil wars, or proxy wars, or post-independence struggles for power, today
regime survival or incumbent regime efforts fuel arms transfers. The coercive military
balance between regime and dissidents is determined largely by the access to a steady
supply of weapons.
The Chinese arms transfer rationales have undergone change in response to
changes in power political and economic competition in the international system
(Caldwell 2015). In particular, during the era of political ideological rivalry between
communism and capitalism, China supplied weapons to both state and non-state
revolutionary actors with the aim of bolstering Maoism and China’s national interests.
The focus was largely ideological and not motivated by profit. Currently, in this era
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