Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2016 | Page 94

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
Once established, the arms transfer relationship between China and its African trading
partner becomes reinforced by the recipient who will be in constant search of spare
parts, ammunition supply, maintenance upgraded technology, and weapons training
which may take place in Africa or China. Although Chinese arms sales in Africa is
small relative to transfers with the more traditional suppliers and former colonial
powers of Britain and France, as well as the leading arms suppliers of Russia and the
US, Chinese arms sales in Africa attract particular attention and criticisms because: (1)
its arms transfers to states of international concern such as Sudan and Zimbabwe; (2)
its willingness to supply arms to any country in Africa with an ability to pay for them;
and (3) the contradiction between its long-standing policy of non-interference and
its practice of supplying arms to warring factions within a sovereign nation. Arming
sectarian combatants within a sovereign nation is inherently interventionist in nature
and unequivocally interference in a country’s internal affairs, especially when that
country is in the throes of civil war, and where civilians have experienced gross human
rights violations.
Chinese Arms: Negative Impact on African Conflicts
Although the value of arms transfers from China to Africa could be described
as modest compared to trade in oil and other commodities, high-level military
interaction and high-level political delegations have succeeded in enhancing
China’s access to critical raw materials in Africa (Hyler 1992). Since the end of the
1990s, military delegations have been a regular form of interaction between China
and African countries. Arms transfers and military cooperation between China and
African nations fall into two categories: (1) countries with strategic minerals like Sudan
and Nigeria. These are geo-economically important countries to China in particular;
and (2) key states like Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, the DRC, Ghana, and
Zimbabwe, among others. Generally, many African states find China an attractive arms
trading partner because of its “no strings attached” approach to transfer. China does
not make its weapons sales conditional on either human rights or democratic reforms.
China is currently a key supplier of conventional weapons in Africa where arms
transfers there inevitably contribute to civil strife and carnage in more than a few local
conflicts. It is generally alleged that the light weapons used in the massacres in eastern
DRC were Chinese. There, children as young as 11 years old were given weapons by
warlord Thomas Lubanga, and forced to take part in brutal ethnic fighting between
2002 and 2003 (SAFERWORLD 2011). Moreover, according to Amnesty International
reports, in February 2012, both Russian and Chinese supplied weapons fueled conflict
in Sudan. In particular, arms transfers such as helicopter gunships, attack aircraft, airto-air
ground rockets and armored vehicles, including ammunition, are responsible for
serious human rights violations in Darfur, Sudan. Small arms of Chinese manufacture
were used by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and government supported militia,
including Sudan’s Popular Defense Force (PDF) to carry out atrocities in Darfur.
While all of the carnage cannot be directly attributed to Chinese supplied arms as
other countries were active in supplying weapons as well, it is important to note that
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