How China is expanding its law enforcement activities across Africa
- Beijing has signed public security and law enforcement agreements with some 40 African nations, according to report
- Analyst says that as cooperation grows, so does ‘promotion of Chinese policing norms within African police forces’
China’s influence in Africa has expanded to law enforcement as it seeks to protect its nationals abroad or arrest those wanted for alleged crimes.
From South Africa to the North African nations of Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, China has signed public security and law enforcement agreements with some 40 African nations, according to a report by Africa-China security expert Paul Nantulya.
He gives the example of a joint operation in Uganda that led to the capture and deportation of four Chinese nationals who were allegedly part of a criminal gang. More than 30 Chinese commandos took part in the operation with Ugandan special forces in January 2022.
Chinese nationals have been warned of an increased risk of kidnappings and attacks in the resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in Nigeria. China’s public security ministry sent a team of experts to the DRC last year when the situation worsened, and Beijing said it would send criminal investigators to Nigeria after a rise in kidnappings and attacks on Chinese there.
Nantulya said security cooperation was growing, as was “promotion of Chinese policing norms within African police forces”. He said more than 2,000 African police and law enforcement personnel had received training in China between 2018 and 2021.
The report was published last week by the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies at the National Defence University in Washington, where Nantulya is a research associate.
Among the agreements, Ethiopia and China’s Ministry of Public Security have signed a cooperation framework to protect “major Chinese-assisted projects in the country” such as the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Standard Gauge Railway. In neighbouring Kenya, the government worked with China to set up an elite police force to protect the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway.
