Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2016 | Page 87

Global Security and Intelligence Studies - Volume 2, Number 1 - Fall 2016 Is China Playing a Contradictory Role in Africa? Security Implications of its Arms Sales and Peacekeeping Earl Conteh-Morgan A & Patti Weeks B This article offers a critical analysis of the conflict and regional security implications of one of the strategies (arms sales) utilized by China to expand and consolidate its presence in Africa. This worrying trend is juxtaposed against its equally increasing peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities in post-conflict states within the continent. The analysis, accordingly, argues that the simultaneous growth in the scope of arms transfers and increase in contributions to peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities is tantamount to a contradictory policy toward Africa. Arms sales to African states encourage some incumbent regimes to maintain their despotic and oppressive rule thereby increasing the probability of violent conflicts between regimes and opposition groups. Small arms also prolong civil wars because of the easy access to them. While Chinese arms have been implicated in many conflicts in Africa, China at the same time is also enhancing African Union peacekeeping activities through generous financial donations as well as participation in humanitarian assistance, national police training, and resettlement of ex-combatants, among other activities. The question is, why does China pursue these seemingly antithetical policies within Africa? Or, why does China play this contradictory role contrary to its narrative of noninterference in the internal affairs of other states? Keywords: China, Africa, Arms Sales, Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding. Introduction China’s growing presence in Africa has spawned many explanations of its political, economic cultural and other activities in the continent. A good deal of its interactions with African states involves arms sales and support for peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities. In its dealings with African states it deliberately tries to set itself apart from the West’s record of colonial rule and exploitation of the continent. China constantly reiterates and underscores its foreign policy of noninterference in the affairs of African states. Nonetheless, it has not been able to escape the lure of the benefits that are associated with arms sales to Africa, plus its negative consequences, as well as the geopolitical ties that it enhances between China and Africa. Accordingly, the objective of this article is to analyze China’s seemingly contradictory A Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, University of South Florida B Adjunct Professor, Department of History and Political Science, University of South Florida doi: 10.18278/gsis.2.1.6 81