Africa will be a Central Testing Ground for China’s Dual-Purpose Military Industry

Recent Pentagon and RAND reports have pointed out China’s trend toward integrating the military with commercial enterprises to boost production and innovation in dual-use technologies. Especially in information technology, “national champion” companies such as Huawei, Datang, Zhongxing, and Julong are storefront facades for the Chinese defense industry. For example, Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, was the former director of the People’s Liberation Army Information Engineering Academy. The company remains joined at the hip with the military both financially and in research and development. Analysts have focused on the Chinese military as partner and consumer of the nation’s high-tech enterprises. However, little attention has been paid to other potential markets and future testing grounds for dual-use technologies.

Africa will be critical for China to achieve its goal of creating a vibrant military-industrial complex. Rather than weapons, China’s greatest opportunity in Africa is the growing need for technologies of surveillance and control of its people. Dual-purpose medical, biometric, telecommunications, and weather monitoring technology that can be used to track migrations and congregations of people across Africa will provide a fertile testing ground and market for China’s developing commercial military.

As giants such as Microsoft look to gain a foothold in the continent’s rapidly growing IT market, the Chinese, on the ground and in the skies, have already been building Africa’s IT infrastructure from cell phones to satellites. In 1998, for example, Huawei began undercutting better known competitors such as Nokia and Ericsson to become the largest supplier in sub Saharan countries of CDMA and NGN products. In 2007 alone, Huawei’s sales in Africa topped 11.5 billion, a jump of 62% of all international revenue compared to 2006.

China’s Need to Protect Its Interests in Africa Against Rising Local Violence and Perceived Threats from the US

To protect their commercial and political interests, China will provide increasingly more sophisticated surveillance and control technologies to Africa. This will be necessary to check threats from both rising violence against Chinese companies on the continent and US plans, which the Chinese perceive as aimed at containing their influence. China does not maintain a significant military presence in Africa, but relies on its close relationship with individual leaders and governments, often through military advisors and private security firms. Both the Chinese and their African allies have a common interest in controlling anti-government forces, which are increasingly hostile to China’s rapid growth in Africa. In the past, China has pursued a divide and conquer strategy of supplying their individual allies with weapons, rather than supporting regional security efforts. However, military solutions are not adequate for China and their allies to achieve an even more important goal of pursuing commercial development and reaping profit from ripening African economies.

Violence against Chinese interests in Africa is on the rise. In April, 2007, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a separatist group in Eastern Ethiopia, attacked a China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation oil field, killing 70 employees, including 9 Chinese, and kidnapping 7 other Chinese workers. In Nigeria, gunmen kidnapped 5 Chinese technicians working for the Sichuan Telecommunications Company followed by 3 more in May, 2008 working for the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Corporation. In December, the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement attacked a China National Petroleum Corporation facility in the Heglig area of Western Kordofan. More recently in March, 2008, 500 Zambian miners rioted and attacked their Chinese managers at a Chambishi copper smelter. The common outcry, as with other incidences all over Africa, was for better working conditions and a general expulsion of what Zambian opposition leader, Michael Sata, called “the Chinese invaders.”

Recent US military actions directly threaten China’s tenuous hold on Africa. In the 1990’s, the US moved the 7th fleet logistical command from Subic Bay in the Philippines to Singapore’s Changi Naval Base. This allows the US to control the Malacca Strait, the jugular of China’s link to the African continent and the portal to the South China Sea. China imports 95% of its oil by sea of which 80% are transported through the Malacca Strait. Through the South China Sea passes two-thirds of the world’s trade in liquefied natural gas and by 2020, China is expected to import more than 30 million tons per year. In 2007, the US also announced the creation of Africom, a unified military command for Africa, making the region strategically equal to the Pacific Rim, Middle East, Latin America, North America, and Europe.

Private Chinese Security Firms will Expand Their Business in Africa

China’s hold on Africa is thus becoming increasingly unstable. China has no ability to challenge the US at sea, even with a new nuclear submarine base at Hainan island. An increased Chinese military presence in Africa would be unprecedented and would possibly result in an arms escalation in the region, not to mention incite greater local resentment and violence against the Chinese. China’s best option remains to strengthen ties with current regimes.

Surveillance and control technologies will be the newest in the arsenal of methods to assist in achieving a pro-Chinese, pro-business, and functionally stable political climate. China is the logical supplier of such technologies to African leaders and has already provided equipment to the Sudanese government to monitor opposition. Many US companies such as Cisco Systems are legally barred from exporting such technology.

In the near future, China will begin exporting to Africa mini versions of its Golden Shield system, a nationwide high-tech surveillance network linking everything from CCTV, cell-phones, and national identity cards. Several leading companies have already emerged such as Shenzhen based, China Security and Surveillance Technology, which has developed CCTV software to alert police of unusually large gatherings of people. Building on American technology, Guangzhou based Pixel Solutions produces high-tech national ID cards and face-recognition software for governments and businesses. Chinese companies like these can be expected to lead the charge into 21st century Africa to help ensure “peaceful stability and protection” against anti-government forces labeled as “terrorists.”