Africa presents unique and complex challenges for China. Political instability, including wars, coups, and civil unrest, poses challenges that could undermine China’s peaceful rise and necessitate the deployment of military and security forces to protect investment and the country’s economic development. Without the stability provided by market capitalism, democracy, and a rules-based order, China faces a choice between failure and neocolonialism.
Ultimately, Chinese leaders are faced with the risk of using direct intervention to maintain unilateral control over investment or relying on a Western-backed rules-based order to facilitate market access. You may be forced to make a choice. If China is labeled as a neo-colonial power, its long-held policy of non-interference will be undermined. But the alternative of leaving Chinese companies to make investments based on their own risk assessments, essentially returning to the “going out” policy of the late 1990s before the Belt and Road Initiative, would also carry economic and political risks.
No one knows what the Chinese government will do if faced with this choice. But African leaders would be wise not to wait until they find out. In the meantime, we should strive to diversify our economic relationships to avoid falling victim to China’s neo-colonialism.
background
Currently, Belt and Road Initiative activities in Africa are mainly focused on hard infrastructure such as transportation and electricity. The initiative focuses on the mineral sector, which is essential for exports to China, and in this respect is consistent with Europe’s history of resource extraction. China recognizes that its development is highly dependent on African exports. It is seeking to rapidly expand these exports through infrastructure investments to ease supply constraints, rising prices and geopolitical entanglements with countries such as Australia over commodities such as iron ore.
In the early 2000s, China’s involvement was strengthened politically with the creation of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum. However, despite its promises, it is not contributing to Africa’s independent development as China sets the agenda. West African countries have serious problems with political stability, leading United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to refer to the Sahel as Africa’s “coup belt.” Since 2020, nine coups have occurred in the Sahel region: Burkina Faso (twice), Chad, Gabon, Mali (twice), Niger, and Sudan. , all participating in the Belt and Road Initiative. participate. Africa has experienced the highest number of coups since the 1950s, accounting for 106 of the world’s 214 coups. These upheavals have strained relations between the new government and Western countries, particularly former colonial powers such as France and the United States, which led to the expulsion of troops from Niger in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
China’s post-Cold War interests and the Belt and Road Initiative place less emphasis on good governance, such as political stability, democracy, and human rights, and instead pursue non-interference as a priority. This could enable geopolitical changes towards China and, unfortunately, further coups d’état that would hinder Africa’s development.
From infrastructure and non-interference to security and indoctrination?
Political instability may also prompt China to shift its focus to protecting its own development. Transguine’s project to build rail and port infrastructure to support iron ore exports was awarded US$15 billion in collaboration with the Belt and Road Initiative. However, Africa’s largest mining infrastructure project, the Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea, was scheduled to open in 2015 but has been repeatedly postponed due to political instability. President Xi Jinping has increasingly prioritized peace and security as the basis for development. In April 2022, he prioritized infrastructure over security, stating that “infrastructure is… a pillar of socio-economic development.” However, one year later, in March 2023, President Xi said, “Security is the foundation of development.” At the China-Africa Cooperation Forum Summit held in Beijing in September 2024, China pledged 360 billion yuan (more than 50 billion USD) in aid to Africa over three years, with a significant portion of it going to security. was assigned to the initiative.
Thus, China seems to recognize that without good governance, economic development will be problematic. China’s increasing emphasis on security has called into question its long-standing policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of African countries. As China deepens its involvement in security, it may inevitably become embroiled in the complex political conflicts that characterize many African countries. China’s growing role in security could also change its image in Africa, requiring policies and actions to shape China’s image and influence the perceptions and beliefs of those in power.
The China-Africa Cooperation Forum summit declaration emphasized that China will not interfere in the internal affairs of African countries or impose political conditions on aid. But it promised to invite about 7,500 military, police and young African military personnel and 1,000 party elites to train in China over the next three years. This pledge builds on the Chinese Communist Party’s longstanding commitment since the 1960s to strengthen interparty relations by educating African communist leaders. Established in 2022, the Nyerere Leadership School is modeled on and supported by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School, strengthening China’s ideological influence in Africa. The joint project brings together the Chinese Communist Party and six dominant southern African liberation movements to provide ideological training to the leaders of the parties that have ruled uninterrupted since independence.
Rather than relying solely on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Chinese Communist Party is strengthening its foreign policy through the International Department of the Central Committee. For example, Li Mingshan, deputy director of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, visited Uganda in March 2023 to celebrate the National Resistance Movement party, which has ruled in a “one family” format since 1986. Therefore, deepening China’s involvement in peacekeeping, security training, and military assistance could complicate China’s neutral position, especially in states facing political turmoil, and could lead to targeted Additional political education may be necessary.
This has led to growing concerns among analysts that China is becoming a neo-colonial power in Africa, as it exhibits a pattern of political and economic interactions similar to those of the European countries it has exiled to. . Plantation/resource extraction type colonies have been identified based on the above activities and other similar interactions. For example, Mark Langan has stated that “China’s intervention appears to be perpetuating (neo-)colonial patterns of trade and production and depriving it of the exercise of empirical sovereignty.” Ian Taylor calls China’s engagement with Africa “oil diplomacy,” as Beijing seeks to gain access to vital raw materials.
Similarly, there are grounds to argue that a model of transactional bastions and dependencies is emerging. Providing security and military power are historical attributes on which colonizers were dependent. Africa’s security is so important that China now wants to integrate its security engagement with the African continent into its global security initiative, and Chinese leaders are integrating this strategy into global security initiatives. It is seen as a new and enhanced approach to China is a major arms exporter to the continent as well as a provider of military aid. Under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, nearly all of China’s more than 2,500 peacekeepers are deployed to the African continent, along with resource-rich countries such as South Sudan. In 2017, China opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti and has since been aiming to build a second military base on the continent. The base is strategically located on the Suez Canal trade route to prevent piracy and other interference with essential imports such as oil.
China takes little part in public participation in security matters. However, to counter the rise in anti-China sentiment in recent years, the Chinese government may take a more active role as it indirectly supports local state actors. Over the past few decades, growing anger against Chinese companies has led to political protests being suppressed by Chinese-backed authorities. Already in Kampala, Ugandans protested unfair competition in 2017, and the mayor labeled protesters xenophobic instead of addressing their concerns. More recently, in 2023, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ordered the military to protect Chinese businesses at risk of destruction, but protests still erupted over the recently opened Chinatown supermarket in Kampala. Ta. In August 2023, more than 1,000 Kenyan traders took to the streets to protest the entry of Chinese traders into the market, claiming it was causing unfair competition. Therefore, in locally unstable regions, China will go beyond economic involvement to direct military involvement to protect its people’s interests, such as in the gradual development of European dependent colonies. They may be forced to rely on other countries or increase political control. However, China has repeatedly rejected claims of neo-colonialism and continues to tout instead that it pursues “win-win” cooperation and common development with the mainland. Currently, China has no formal overseas colonies other than military facilities. Its policies and actions in Cuba’s Bejukal and Djibouti, Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as civilian-military facilities such as Cambodia’s Ream and Pakistan’s Gwadar, have been labeled colonial.
conclusion
China’s increasingly neo-colonial approach could ultimately undermine the policy of non-interference that is the cornerstone of African and global diplomacy. As China becomes more embroiled in the continent’s security challenges, it will struggle to balance its declared principles of non-interference with the realities of political instability and the desire to mitigate these threats. Dew. Will China incite a coup, finance or deploy rebels to maintain control over resources?
Rather than waiting for results, African countries could diversify their partnerships and explore new avenues of financing. Dependency on China risks making it vulnerable to changing priorities in Beijing. African countries can gain greater control over their development paths by fostering functional relationships with each other, implementing internal market-based reforms, and seeking external support from states that prioritize good governance. Masu.
Dr Jonathan Ping is Associate Professor of Political Economy at Bond University, Australia. His research focuses on theories of national strategy of middle powers and great powers, and the nature of hegemony within and outside Asia. He is the director of the East Asia Security Center. Twitter @drjhping and Linkedin.
Joel Odota holds a Master’s degree in Politics and International Relations from the Australian National University in Australia and a Master’s Degree in Chinese Politics and International Relations from Peking University in China. His research focuses on China-Africa relations, geopolitical competition between China and the United States, and African actors in the global political landscape. Twitter @odotajoel and LinkedIn.
Image: China-Africa Cooperation Forum