The dragon bares its claws in eastern Africa

The dragon bares its claws in eastern Africa

To protect its commercial and maritime interests while projecting its superpower status, Beijing is modernising and expanding its military with major implications for Africa, writes Patrick Mutahi

China released its sixth biennial Defense White Paper on 20 January 2009 marking a double-digit increase in its budgetary allocation to $58.8bn in 2008 for the 20th year in a row.

In tandem with the emerging power’s rising influence and security vulnerabilities, the 2008 Chinese Defence white paper elevates the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) into echelons of power and decision-making in foreign policy. Now, this has security implications for the way Africa is going to relate with its biggest trading partner.

The rapid economic expansion of China has not only afforded Beijing more leverage around the globe, but also expanded its vulnerabilities.
Sino-Africa trade volume hit an all time high in 2008, reaching a historic new level of $106.8bn despite the global economic downturn.
Chinese engineers killed.

According to Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, the Asian power has for the past eight years witnessed a super fast growth of 30 per cent annually since Sino-Africa trade volume reached more than $10bn (Shs19.5trillion) in 2000. This means that the bilateral trade exceeded $100bn (Shs195 trillion) two years earlier than predicted. China had expected trade to hit that mark by 2010.

The People’s Republic also plans to increase oil and gas imports from Africa by up to 40 per cent in the next five to 10 years. The trend is attributed to increasing shipments of natural resources to China, especially crude oil, mainly from Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo and Angola.

Beijing is also importing metals from Ghana, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and South Africa, as well as cobalt and other minerals. At the same time, goods manufactured in China are increasingly sought after by African consumers.
But this has also exposed the Asian country to various security challenges.

In April 2007, nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopian oil engineers were killed in an assault on an oil exploration site operated by Sinopec’s Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.
The militia group Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) also kidnapped seven Chinese men who it later released. The ONLF has repeatedly warned foreign oil companies to leave the region bordering Somalia.

In February 2007, four assailants raided a Chinese building materials plant in Kenya and killed one Chinese employee. In April 2006, the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) condemned China for taking a $2.2bn (4.29 trillion)stake in the delta’s oil fields. MEND detonated a car bomb and warned that Chinese investors would be “treated as thieves.”

Anti-Chinese sentiments have ballooned in Zambia since 2005 when an explosion at a Chinese-owned copper mine killed at least 46 workers and spawned complaints of unsafe working conditions and poor environmental practices.

Despite the mounting insecurity to its investments, China unlike other major powers has not established a military presence in Africa. Likewise, China does not train African soldiers to deal with threats to its national interests. Instead of using a military presence to counter-balance other major powers, the People’s Republic joins collective security efforts within the framework of the UN and African regional organisations. Over the past few years this has evolved from passive support to active cooperation.

However, Beijing is now bringing the PLA back to the forefront in foreign policy after being confronted with social, economic and security problems, from counterterrorism and anti-piracy operations to humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.

But Beijing’s military build-up is not exceptional. Most external powers, for which Africa’s mineral wealth has become indispensable to their growth, have backed up their economic forays with a projection of military might. This is aimed at suppressing local resistance in their dominions or fending off their realms from other imperialist competitors.
Nevertheless, this expanded role may be constrained mainly by China’s traditional view of state sovereignty and non-interference, which will continue to be an important factor for Chinese action.

Released when President Barack Obama was being inaugurated and “intended to clarify afresh its defence policy principles at America’s historic turning point,” the nearly 100-page security document contains signs of efforts by Beijing to explain the objectives behind its nuclear strategy and naval deployments.

In addition, it projects that future conflicts will be brought about by increased competition for energy and food.
The restructuring of China’s military to be more mobile and flexible with a longer reach was already under way, but the 2008 Defence White Paper makes it clear that this capability is intended not just for contingencies in China, but also abroad.

Beijing has been modernising its military in ways that give it options for launching surprise attacks on targets far from its borders according to America’s Defence Department Annual report released in May 2007.

The report cites the Army’s acquisition of long-endurance submarines and warships, unmanned combat aircraft, additional precision-guided air-to-ground missiles and long-distance military communications systems.
“The People’s Liberation Army is pursuing comprehensive transformation from a mass army designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to one capable of fighting and winning short-duration, high-intensity conflicts against high-tech adversaries,” the Pentagon report said.

The deployment of the Chinese Navy (PLAN) to Somalia thus should be seen in this light and as a sign of things to come. The 2008 defence white paper indeed announced intention to bolster China’s ability to carry out maritime operations on the open seas.

It says the country will “gradually develop its capabilities of conducting cooperation in distant waters and countering non-traditional security threats.” This proves that in the years ahead, the PLA intends to be every bit as global in its operations as other world powers.
China’s 2008 Defence White Paper emphasises Beijing’s response through Mootw — an acronym for “Military Operations Other Than War,” writes an analyst with Stratfor, a think-tank that tracks political, economic or military developments worldwide.

Dramatic expansion

Mootw serves as euphemism for a range of operations that fall short of outright war including deterring war, resolving conflict, promoting peace, and supporting civil authorities in response to domestic crises
Expanding Mootw on an international scale builds on prior years of shifting personnel and training, improving technology and communications, streamlining logistics and extending the range of Chinese military systems.

It also fits in with China’s expansion of its overall global policy, where the military plays a role in tandem with economic and political tools as stated in the defence paper.

One of the most high-profile aspects of this trend is the dramatic expansion in Chinese peacekeeping deployments to UN operations. As of November 2008, China was the 14th largest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, providing more personnel than three other permanent members of the UN Security Council—Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

China has 1,949 military peacekeeping personnel serving in nine UN mission areas and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Among them, there were 88 military observers and staff officers; 175 engineering troops and 43 medical personnel for the United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (UNMONUC); 275 engineering troops, 240 transportation troops and 43 medical personnel for the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL); 275 engineering troops, 100 transportation troops and 60 medical personnel for the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS); 275 engineering troops and 60 medical personnel for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL); and 315 engineering troops for the African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).

The paper also states that China’s submarine force now possesses a nuclear counterstrike capability; the military has focused on information and electronic warfare and has accelerated the introduction of third-generation technologies into the PLA.

Moreover, the paper says that China has more precision-guided weapons, and that the military is expanding operations beyond China. It also lays out the process by which the Second Artillery Force, which oversees China’s ballistic missiles, would respond to a nuclear threat or attack.
To achieve blue water capability, China has been expanding its naval force. It now boasts 57 attack submarines, a dozen of which are nuclear-powered, 74 major surface vessels (destroyers and frigates) and 55 large and medium-sized amphibious ships.

A few nuclear-powered strategic submarines are armed with long-range ballistic missiles. A significant portion of this naval force has been built since 2000. China is now the world’s third largest shipbuilder — building one fifth of the world’s ships — and thus has a considerable industrial basis for further naval expansion.

This maritime strength establishes China as a force to reckon with while dealing with piracy along the Somali coast which has disrupted a key trade route with Africa.

“China’s military participation sends a strong political message to the international community, that a China with improved economic and military strength is willing to play a larger role in maintaining world peace and security,” Li Wei, Director of the Anti-terrorism Research Centre at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told the China Daily last month.

A fifth of Chinese ships attacked

Around 1,265 Chinese commercial vessels passed the Gulf of Aden last year, including tankers carrying 60 per cent of China’s imported oil from the Middle East, as well as shipments of raw material from Africa. Also, Europe is now China’s largest trade partner, with much of the goods passing through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

In December 2008 the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that Somali pirates had attacked one fifth of Chinese vessels passing through Somali waters from January to November last year, hijacking 15 vessels.

The US, Japan, India and Europe are watching the development with unease. The London-based Times summed up the concerns in the West: “In an era when China is playing a much larger global role in commerce and politics, the deployment (of warships to the Gulf of Aden) redefines it as a nation prepared to spill blood protecting its diverse stakes in the world economy.”

A strategic report published this month by a US think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute, pointed out that the rapidly expanding Chinese submarine force had taken “American intelligence experts by surprise”.

Throwing in aircraft carriers

Since 1990, China has initiated five submarine programmes. As from 1995, the state has added 37 submarines to its navy, including nuclear-powered ones. By adding three new subs a year, China could have up to 85 submarines in eight years.

“Never, since the period between the two world wars, has a nation undertaken a comparable level of submarine development,” the study concluded.

Another major concern for China’s rivals is recent preparations to build aircraft carriers. At the news conference announcing the dispatch of warships to Somali waters in November 2008, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said Beijing would use aircraft carriers to “defend sovereignty over coastal areas and territorial seas”. His comment came just after Chinese general Quan Lihua told the Financial Times in November 2008 that China was considering the construction of one to two aircraft carriers. ( The republic has already ordered 50 Su-33 fighters from Russia, specifically designed for carriers.)

The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported on December 31, 2008 that the People’s Republic would start building an aircraft carrier at the Shanghai shipyard this year, to be completed by 2015. The two 50,000 to 60,000 ton carriers are to be conventionally-powered vessels and therefore much smaller than the US makes. They will be assigned to the Southern Fleet in the South China Sea and possibly to the Indian Ocean to protect oil shipments from the Middle East.

Reacting to the news of Chinese warships heading for the Gulf of Aden, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso instructed the defence ministry to “quickly participate in counter-piracy measures”. It is currently preparing to dispatch Maritime Self-Defence Force destroyers to protect Japanese commercial vessels from pirates off Somalia as early as March 2009.

However, this deployment has already faced political opposition from the Liberal Democratic Party’s junior coalition partner, New Komeito. In addition, the country’s pacifist Constitution restricts the activities of its military. However, Hamada said that a new law would have to be passed to authorise the maritime force to pursue the anti-piracy mission off Somalia.

India, another Chinese rival, is also concerned about Beijing’s Somali mission, fearing that the Asian power is seeking to patrol the Indian Ocean, long regarded by New Delhi as its sphere of influence.

Controlling the Indian Ocean

India is expected to spend about $40bn (Shs78 trillion) on military modernisation from 2008 to 2013. With its recent and ongoing upgrades and inductions, independent analysts expect that the Indian Navy may soon become a fully accomplished blue-water force. It is already powerful and with further upgrades in the future, the world’s fifth largest navy aims to control the Indian Ocean Region, from the coast of East Africa to Australia.

Like its rivals that already have warships patrolling the strategically vital sea lanes through the Gulf of Aden connecting Asia and Europe, China’s naval presence is not so much about fighting the pirates, but protecting its own economic interests.

While the 2008 Defence White Paper is not directly threatening to operationalise a more aggressive and confrontational Chinese military, it does suggest that the capabilities for a cooperative PLA are equally applicable to a confrontational one.

Africa Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media Network Project.