China’s Bid for a Bigger Security Role in Africa

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Beijing is increasingly emphasizing security cooperation in its relations with African countries.
• China wants to link this security cooperation with Africa to its Global Security Initiative.
• China’s GSI-related advances in Africa, and elsewhere, present numerous challenges for the U.S.

Last week, China welcomed more than 50 African leaders to Beijing for the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which has met every three years since 2000 to coordinate economic and political relations. FOCAC is China’s main platform for Belt and Road-affiliated projects and Chinese plans for infrastructure development have generally dominated the action plans that come out of the forum. In recent years, exchanges between Chinese and African political parties, legislatures and local governments have also been a focus of the forum. China has also found in FOCAC a source of support for international relations principles it prioritizes, including noninterference and its “one China” principle. While security cooperation has been an element of FOCAC for more than a decade, this year’s forum saw an unprecedented Chinese emphasis on its role in security on the continent.

Beijing’s growing security focus comes out of its recognition that exposure to risk resulting from intrastate conflict could result in high economic losses. China drew many lessons from the conflict in Sudan and oil-rich South Sudan’s independence in 2011. Since then, China’s security involvement on the continent has been expanding, becoming a routine facet of FOCAC and China’s activities in Africa. At this year’s forum, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, linked China-Africa security cooperation to China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI), what Xi and China’s diplomats describe as a Chinese vision for a new and “better” approach to global security.

What is the GSI?

First announced by Xi in April 2022, the GSI proposes replacing the Western-dominated global security architecture with an international security order in which China plays a more prominent role as a source of international security. China has used the GSI to deepen security ties with neighboring countries and linked the initiative to its role in peace processes, like the Saudi-Iran deal, its peace plan for Ukraine and recent efforts to reconcile Palestinian factions. China has linked some of the special funds it established for peace and security to the GSI, including the China-U.N. Peace and Development Trust Fund and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Special Fund. A GSI “concept paper” issued in 2023 also outlined a commitment to expand China’s role in training military and police professionals from developing countries.

For China, the GSI provides a useful conceptual framework and concrete set of activities that help socialize and justify China’s growing security role, especially in the Global South.

A 2024 report on GSI activities by the China Institute of International Studies — a research institute serving China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs — paints a picture of an initiative that is increasingly important in China’s international relationships. USIP’s discussions with experts in regions neighboring China suggest that they assess the GSI as conceptually like the Belt and Road Initiative — an ambitious global vision launched with few details that over time will likely grow to encompass diverse facets of an expanding Chinese security footprint in international security. For China, the GSI provides a useful conceptual framework and concrete set of activities that help socialize and justify China’s growing security role, especially in the Global South.

The GSI’s New Africa Focus

In his major speech at FOCAC, Xi emphasized that modernization and development cannot be achieved without a “peaceful and stable” environment. With that understanding, Xi said that China will assist African partners to improve their capacity in “safeguarding peace and stability,” including through prioritizing Africa for the implementation of the GSI. Specifically, in making a pledge for “Partnership Action for Common Security,” Xi promised that over the next three years, under the GSI banner, China would:

Provide training for 6,000 military personnel and 1,000 police and law enforcement officers;
Invite 500 young African military officers to visit China;
Conduct joint military training, exercises and patrols with African partners;
Assist in mine clearance across Africa;
Work with African partners to provide security for joint projects’ personnel and property; and
Offer RMB 1 million (140,000 U.S. dollars) in military assistance grants.

Two points stand out that differentiate these offers from the past. The first is the greater prominence of the GSI as the organizing framework under which China-Africa security relations should proceed in the future. This is entirely consistent with the steadily increasing profile of GSI in China’s diplomatic strategy and high-level pronouncements. Second is the clear attachment of certain concrete measures to the GSI, including training of security forces, joint military activities, and — importantly — provision of security for Chinese infrastructure and other industrial projects and personnel on African territory. This gives the GSI greater definition and links it to actionable outcomes.

These developments provide stronger momentum to a trend that has been well underway for more than two decades: China’s deepening diplomatic and financial commitment to relations with African partners. China foresees great opportunity in these relationships as the continent is expected to enjoy considerable growth in the coming years, both demographically and economically: if the African Continental Free Trade Area is fully realized, by 2030 it will represent a market of 1.7 billion people with $6.7 trillion in consumer and private sector spending. China is already Africa’s largest trading partner and bilateral creditor and that dominance is set to increase as China’s state-owned and private sectors see major opportunities in the region.

China is well placed to benefit from this growth as it has long found favor with African countries given their shared colonial and post-colonial histories and common experiences as developing nations. Unlike countries around China’s periphery, which have historical experiences with imperial Chinese expansionism, African states generally associate China with a rigid commitment to territorial sovereignty, the principle of noninterference, and see Beijing as a long-standing and reliable provider of economic assistance and development aid.

These foundational areas of common ground go a long way in helping Beijing establish its credentials in its pursuit of global leadership roles, garnering international support for its interests, and aligning a growing number of governments with China’s preferred norms on international governance and world order. Garnering African support for the GSI is also important as China seeks to socialize the initiative at the U.N. and in other multilateral forums where Africa’s 54 countries are a significant share of the membership.

Given China’s increasing political and economic investment in Africa, Beijing will want to ensure the longer-term security and stability of these commitments. Some analysis identifies a correlation between China’s rising investments in Africa and its growing conflict-mediation role on the continent. Providing other types of security engagement with African states under the GSI will help protect those investments while also strengthening bilateral ties with partner governments across Africa. Many African countries have indicated receptivity to expanding security ties with China, which has become the largest arms-supplier to sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. Arms sales with flexible financing arrangements may go hand-in-hand with joint exercises, military training and possibly future basing and access arrangements for Chinese armed forces, and are often part of bigger packages that comprise expanded bilateral trade and investment deals.

Beyond traditional military-related ties, China’s role in security on the continent takes other forms. China has expanded its role in police training and as a supplier of security equipment, sometimes under the banner of protecting its citizens abroad. A 2023 Africa Center for Strategic Studies report estimated that around 40 African countries had agreements with China’s public security agencies.

Challenges for the U.S.

China’s GSI-related advances in Africa are part and parcel of Beijing’s larger strategy for competing globally and regionally with the United States and present a number of challenges for Washington. First, as an effort to offer an alternative approach to international security — and one explicitly juxtaposed against U.S.-led security norms and policies — the GSI is garnering support not only in Africa, but across many parts of the Global South.

Beijing’s promotion of the GSI is aimed at legitimizing China’s growing role as a provider of global security goods in a way that counterbalances or overtakes the United States’ traditional leadership in this field.

Second, in practice this means that China is establishing the groundwork for a more extensive security role and presence in different parts of the world, especially in Africa, but also around its periphery in Central Asia and Southeast Asia. This presence includes stepped-up security, policing and military assistance, increased weapons and security technology transfers, a range of new China-led training opportunities for military and security forces in partner countries, and a greater on-the-ground presence of China military, police and other security forces in the Global South.

Finally, these developments have broader implications for important norms and interests supported by the United States and like-minded allies and partners. At one level, Beijing’s promotion of the GSI and its activities is aimed at legitimizing China’s growing role as a provider of global security goods in a way that counterbalances or overtakes the United States’ traditional leadership in this field. At another level, the promulgation of GSI concepts and delivery of its activities abroad appears well-suited to strengthening authoritarian practices, combatting internal dissent and “color revolutions,” and contributing to democratic backsliding.