Introduction
China’s security engagements in Africa are part of Beijing’s strategy to advance its international security posture. But what does international security mean, and how does China fit into this security framework? International security involves measures by states and global actors to ensure safety and prevent conflict worldwide. It includes efforts to maintain peace among nations and protect against war, terrorism, cyberattacks, nuclear proliferation and transnational crime. China’s approach to international security is influenced by its strategic interests, sovereignty concerns, global ambitions and preference for a multipolar world order. While China officially supports non-interference, multilateralism and peaceful development, its stance is often shaped by geopolitical considerations.
The Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Action Plan (2025-27) includes more security commitments than any previous FOCAC Action Plans. This highlights China’s aim to become a significant security actor in Africa, alongside its economic influence. When FOCAC started in 2000, China held less than 5% of African weapons inventories, admitted fewer than 200 African officers in its military schools, and did not conduct military drills in Africa. Currently, China is training approximately 2 000 African officers annually and has become a leading arms supplier on the continent. Roughly 70% of African countries now operate Chinese armoured vehicles.
China’s joint drills with African forces – of which there have been 20 since 2006 – have grown in scale and sophistication in recent years, as shown by the August 2024 Tanzania-China-Mozambique land and sea exercises and the joint Chinese and Egyptian air force drills in May 2025. These were respectively the largest Chinese deployments of ground, naval and air forces in Africa ever.
China has also deployed 47 escort task groups on continuous rotations in the Gulf of Aden and conducted 280 defence exchanges since 2007. The exchange in May 2025 brought 100 African early career officers from 40 countries on a 10-day familiarisation tour hosted by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) National University of Defense Technology.
China’s overarching security concept known as the Global Security Initiative is guiding China’s expanded security engagements in Africa. These engagements are integrated with deepening political support for selected ruling parties and the promotion of the security norms and governance practices of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). China aims to gain favour with ruling elites, secure preferential treatment for its companies, and enlist African support for its geopolitical ambitions.
China’s security engagements have encountered challenges. Chinese arms have sometimes fallen into the hands of militants in conflict zones such as Mali, Darfur, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With few oversight regulations, Chinese arms and surveillance equipment have been used by some African governments to harass and suppress political opponents.
Such outcomes from Chinese security engagements are fuelling negative sentiments among some segments of African public opinion regarding China, which is often criticised for reinforcing illiberal practices in Africa. It also poses a dilemma over the divergence between African citizen interests and China’s security and geostrategic ambitions on the continent.
Security engagement with Chinese characteristics
Official Chinese views on security are based on the hegemony of the CCP as the sole leader of society and the backbone of the state, government and military. The CCP prioritises “stability maintenance”, which holds that regime legitimacy and public consent to CCP rule derive from its ability to impose and maintain social order. In the CCP context, national security, party and state security are interchangeable. China’s 2015 National Security Law defines state security as “the relative absence of international or domestic threats to the state’s power to govern”. The state is defined as one “persisting in the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party”.
These concepts frame China’s overseas security assistance, including in Africa, where certain ruling parties exercise power in ways similar to China’s governing party. Some African uniformed services also remain oriented toward regime security instead of citizen protection. This creates an opportunity for China to advance its governance model and perspective on security while instilling CCP norms and practices.
African partners of Chinese security engagements typically enjoy close party-to-party exchanges with the CCP. Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe receive more than 90% of their arms from China. In 2024, Namibia was the first foreign country to acquire the Shaanxi Y-9E medium military transport aircraft.
The CCP has built relationships elsewhere as well. Burundi, Ghana, Kenya and Senegal each receive over 50% of their weaponry from China. These countries have had frequent exchanges with the CCP.
A differentiated security assistance strategy
China’s closest ties on the continent are often with the liberation movement parties that have held power since independence. In Tanzania, for example, the military inventory, order of battle, military doctrine and service culture are heavily influenced by China.
This builds on a long history of engagement. After the failed coup attempt in 1964, the leadership of newly independent Tanzania disbanded the entire military, expelled British and Soviet instructors, and turned to China to build the Tanzania People’s Defence Force from scratch. China remains Tanzania’s principal military partner and a primary source of weaponry, education and training, and residential military advisors. This entails frequent military drills and major weapons systems like amphibious tanks, patrol boats and fighter jets. Most of Tanzania’s important installations, like Ngerengere Air Force Base, Kigamboni Naval Base and the Comprehensive Military Training Centre, Mapinga, are Chinese-built. So are most of its professional military education institutions, like Monduli Military Academy and the National Defence College.
China is also expanding military ties with nontraditional partners like Senegal and Kenya, although this process is less straightforward. Under President Abdoulaye Wade’s “Look East” policy, Senegal officially recognised Beijing in 2005. Senegal then joined FOCAC the following year, which led to the admission of Senegalese officers to Chinese staff colleges. In 2009, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Senegal and announced a multiyear package of aid and grants, including $49 million in additional funding for military education and training and an assortment of equipment for the police and gendarmerie.
China sequenced its security engagements with direct support for Wade’s priority economic and infrastructure projects, including the $138 million Gouina Hydroelectric Plant. The CCP stepped up its exchanges with Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party, aimed at strengthening its internal machinery. In 2016, Wade’s successor, Macky Sall, and Chinese President Xi Jinping elevated their relations to a “Comprehensive Cooperative Strategic Partnership”, the highest level of relations China can have with a foreign country. In 2017, Senegal became the first West African country to join China’s One Belt One Road Initiative (known internationally as the Belt and Road Initiative). That same year, the Senegalese military started procuring more modern Chinese armaments, which President Sall said were needed to respond to rising insecurity in the Sahel.
From 2018 to 2024, Senegal held the co-presidency of FOCAC, during which its military cooperation with China became as regularised as China’s more established defence partners like Egypt, Tanzania and Nigeria. In 2023, the China North Industries Group Corporation Limited (NORINCO), a major Chinese defence firm, opened a regional office in Dakar, its fourth in Africa after Angola, Nigeria and South Africa. NORINCO used this in-country presence to cement its role as a regular supplier to Senegal’s security sector and expand its operations in the Sahel, where it increased its supplies to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
Chinese security assistance to Kenya developed in similar ways, providing insights into how the PLA cultivates nontraditional partners. After expanding its arms exports to Kenya for 15 years, China designated Kenya as a “Comprehensive Cooperative Strategic Partner”. The growth in the share of Chinese weaponry in Kenya’s inventory from less than 3% in 1990 to 50% in 2018 represents a substantial change in Kenya’s defence relations. Since independence in 1962, Kenya’s military partnerships had been dominated by ties to the United Kingdom and the United States.
A turning point in Kenya-China relations came in the 1990s, when Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, who was seeking external support to preserve his rule, reached out to China. China responded by sponsoring intensive exchanges between the CCP and the Kenya African National Union between 1992 and 1995. These exchanges paved the way for meetings at the defence minister and military chief level in Nairobi and Beijing in 1996 and 1997, respectively.
Kenyan officers had started attending Chinese military academies and staff colleges by 1999. By 2001, Chinese security assistance consisted of annual scholarships for Kenyan officers, military sales, joint exercises, peacekeeping, and support for Kenya’s officer academic institutions. This eventually extended to police cooperation, as in over two dozen African countries.
By 2018, Kenya had begun permitting Chinese law enforcement organisations to conduct joint operations on Kenyan soil (largely targeting Chinese and Taiwanese nationals). In July 2021, China and Kenya launched a programme to train 400 Kenyan security officers annually in China, including elite forces in the Presidential Guard, the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and the General Service Unit. In addition to systematic party-to-party exchanges, China’s security assistance programmes in Kenya also included a large scholarship initiative for students, professionals and government leaders, as well as one of Africa’s largest portfolios of Chinese-financed infrastructure projects.
What African governments want from China’s security engagements
Nearly 40 African countries have some form of relationship with Chinese public security agencies. These include joint interdiction, protection of One Belt One Road assets, and extradition agreements. Many Chinese police institutions have training programmes with African countries, including the People’s Public Security University, the China People’s Police University and Shandong Police College. Between 2018 and 2021, roughly 2 000 African law enforcement officers received training in China.
African governments welcome Chinese security engagements for different reasons. For many, China is a source of affordable armaments with less stringent export controls and more flexible loan terms compared with Western suppliers. Some see China as a means of enhancing regime security. Others seek closer security ties to China as part of a hedging strategy.
A growing number of African countries have worked with China to develop their military industries in recent years. Algeria is working with Chinese firms to produce Type 056 PLA Navy corvettes domestically. Uganda has a joint venture with NORINCO to manufacture Chinese unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) and NORINCO are working on a programme to co-manufacture military-grade ammunition. Such defence-industrial partnerships represent a new and growing area of Chinese security engagement in Africa.
African perspectives on Chinese security engagement
African governments generally hold positive views of Chinese security cooperation, as this is coupled with political support for the ruling party and enhancing regime security. African governments also tend to be supportive of Chinese arms and equipment, which are relatively available and affordable, despite occasional complaints about quality and battlefield effectiveness. Between 2003 and 2017, 38% of the $3,56 billion that eight African countries borrowed from China for security purposes was for domestic security. Chinese digital surveillance technologies are popular purchases and have been adopted by at least 22 African countries.
African democracy advocates, civil society and media professionals generally do not share their governments’ enthusiasm for Chinese security engagements, citing the widespread abuse of Chinese policing and mass surveillance systems. China is also frequently criticised for its regime-centric strategy, which many African observers believe entrenches authoritarian practices. African civil societies play a crucial role in scrutinising these security relationships to ensure they advance citizen interests. As global geostrategic rivalries intensify, there are growing concerns that the enduring African demand for accountable and democratic government is increasingly being put aside in favour of transactional calculations last seen during the Cold War, when security assistance was conditional on countries choosing sides.
Substantive African debates on Chinese security engagement have generally been limited, due to difficulties accessing data for national security research. This is being partly overcome, thanks to expanding independent Africa-China research networks. This is contributing to a growing body of African expertise on the PLA and the People’s Armed Police. This will contribute to greater African awareness, critical analysis and public oversight.
Looking ahead
China is expected to continue expanding its security engagements in Africa to advance its geostrategic ambitions and to fill what it perceives as a vacuum of Western security assistance. Therefore, African societies will need to mitigate potential unintended consequences. Many African observers want better de-risking to ensure that increased Chinese security engagements do not undermine African interests, exacerbate tensions or create insecurity.
Governments have a central role to play in this process by operating with greater transparency to disclose agreement details and ensure they are in the best interests of their citizens. As an arms supplier, China has a special responsibility to enforce its export controls vigorously, especially when these arms are likely to be used against African citizens.
African civil societies are integral to scrutinising these security relationships to ensure they advance citizen interests. The expansion of African networks of experts on Africa-China relations, including security cooperation, is a positive development toward generating greater public awareness to track, monitor and report on Chinese security activities in Africa.
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