China views professional military training in Africa as an opportunity to promote its governance model while strengthening its ties with ruling political parties in Africa.
Training foreign officers, which is part of what China calls “military political work,” has become a key area of Chinese engagement in Africa. This “military political work” (jundui zhengzhi gongzuo; ) includes all the activities of China’s Popular Liberation Army (PLA) aimed at shaping the civilian environment to achieve the political, ideological, and military goals set by the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). These activities include political and ideological awareness within the army, public affairs and the “United Front strategy” (to mobilize support outside the party), as well as educational functions such as military professional training (FMP).
Before the COVID crisis, PLA instructors trained about 2,000 African officers in China’s military and political academies each year. An additional five hundred African officers attended the PLA University of Naval Medicine. Between 2018 and 2021, approximately 2,000 African police and law enforcement personnel received training in the schools of the People’s Army Police (PAP). Like the PLA, the PAP is led by the CCP Central Military Commission.
Before the pandemic, China offered about 100,000 scholarships every three years, for journalists or in the form of invitations to training for local leaders in African countries through the Forum for China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). MPFs accounted for between 4 and 6 per cent of these scholarships. The scope and scope of the training organized by China is disproportionate to those of other international partners.
The PLA is not a national army of the kind described in most African constitutions and laws governing the armed forces. It is a “political army”.The PLA adheres to the principle of absolute control of the army by the party, or “the Party commands the weapon” (dang zhihui qiang; . The CCP itself admits that this is how it has remained in power since 1949. The PLA is not a national army of the kind described in most African constitutions and laws governing the armed forces. It is a “political army” and the backbone of the CCP. Its uniformed members are loyal to the party and guardians of its values, history and spirit, not to the constitution, government or state. The CCP is above these three elements.
During the democratic wave of the 1990’s, African countries – including those with a tradition of liberation movement where the party controls the military – adopted new models that removed the military from party politics and transferred their allegiance to the constitution. However, many ruling parties continue to find the Aegean Party model attractive, especially those that are primarily attached to the survival of the regime. They will probably use their commitments with China to “releasing” the techniques that enabled the CCP to remain in power and control the PLA – the world’s largest army – so as to ensure their perpetual dominance.
The dangers of strengthening this model are obvious, especially in the light of the steady decline of democracy in Africa over the past decade, marked by fraudulent elections, the manipulation of constitutions and the return of coups and military power. These events undermine trust between governments, armies, and citizens, which ultimately leads to instability. African Union (AU) officials have repeatedly stated that it is not wise to invite the army to intervene in politics or to socialize it so that it is in the service of the ruling party. Yet these interventions have become increasingly common.
The CCP’s FPM model
Military academies are repositories of each nation’s strategic culture, societal norms and values. African students enrolled in China’s military academies are exposed to China’s worldview , including the PLA’s strategic culture, the CCP’s modus operandi, and how it interacts with China’s armed forces and controls it.
Étudiants étrangers au Collège de commandement de l’APL à Nanjing.
Foreign students at the PLA Command College in Nanjing. (Photo by China.org.cn)
Chinese MPF also conveys CCP messages about China’s domestic policies, ideology, and foreign-policy initiatives such as the One Belt One Road. The observations made by African and Asian alumni of the PLA National Defense University in China in the eyes of foreign military officers illustrate this. They show how China’s domestic policies can be adapted in their countries and explain how their long stays in China have shaped their attitudes.
African students are enrolled in most of the 34 Chinese officer schools and in the non-commissioned officer schools subordinate to them. Reflecting the Partiarmée model, the PLA training system covers five career paths: military officer, political officer (including civil technical officers), logistics, equipment and technical officer. All Chinese officers serve in one of these channels. African officers were trained in various schools, such as the Dalian Naval Academy and the Army Command College in Nanjing, which hosted the International Military Education Exchange Center (IMEEC) of China. This school is particularly appreciated by African countries because of its role in the formation of African independence movements.
The Nanjing Army High Command School counts among its former African students:
10 Chiefs of Staff
8 Ministers of Defence
Former presidents of:
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (Laurent Kabila)
Guinea-Bissau (Joa Bernardo Vieira)
Namibia (Sam Nujoma)
Tanzania (Jakaya Kikwete)
The Presidents in office of:
Eritrea (Isaias Afwerki)
(Emmerson Mnangagwa)Ninety-four Mozambican senior officers studied there, including the longest-runtime Chief of Staff, General Lagos Lidimo, as well as their counterparts from Angola, Cameroon, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The CCP’s military education model goes through three types of schools:
Academic and intermediate-level command institutions, such as the command colleges of the various branches of the PLA.
Specialized academic and professional institutions, such as the Army Engineering University and the PLA Military Medical Universities.
Strategic-level schools, such as the National Defense University (NDU) and the colleges of the PLASince 2015, the PLA National Defence University has been organizing a “Course for Senior Ethiopian Officials,” a specialized master’s degree course for Ethiopian senior officers. It remains to be seen whether this experimental programme will be extended to other African countries.
The Political Labour Department (zhengzhi gongzuo bu; ) of the CPC Central Military Commission (CMC), which exercises command and control of the PL, is at the top of the system of “military political work.” It is part of the governing structure of the CMC, chaired by the CCP Secretary General, Xi Jinping. It has its own organization of the United Front, the China Association for International Friendly Contacts, which conducts awareness among foreign military academies (including Africans), performs work of political and ideological influence on behalf of the PLA and participates in the development of the TPM abroad.
At least 50 African countries regularly participate in Chinese MPFs.The Party-Aquamed model also shapes Chinese higher education. First, all Chinese officer schools are headed by a commander and a political commissioner of equal rank and authority, the latter being part of the management team. Secondly, a political department is part of the administrative structure of the 37 higher education institutions for officers, and political work is one of the specialties offered in these schools. For example, at the army’s Armoured Forces Academy in Beijing, popular with African countries, students study ideology along with engineering, military science, and management. Third, CCP senior officials lecture and interact with students, especially at the senior level, such as the PLA National Defense University.
Chinese officers also attended some of the CCP’s the PLA’s political academies, such as the PLA National Defense University’s political college in Jiangsu and the China Academy of Executive Leadership in Pudong, Shanghai. The same applies to African officers. China’s Executive Leadership Academy has hosted hundreds of African military and civilian leaders.
China’s “Military Political Work” in Africa
China’s “military political work,” including military education, has focused first in southern Africa, where most of the region’s liberation movements – all of which have close historical ties to China – are still in power. These links were demonstrated in 2022 at the opening of the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in Kibaha, Tanzania. It is China’s first ideological school abroad, founded with a 40-million-dollar grant from the CCP’s international liaison department, which also sent trainers there. It belongs to the six ruling liberation parties in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and zimbabwe, and trains their leadership, among other things, leadership, leadership, and leadership.
The CCP also cultivates countries that do not share its revolutionary legacy. At least 50 African countries of different ideological persuasions regularly participate in Chinese leadership training. In 2019, Botswana had trained more than 500 officers through 43 annual training places provided by the PLA since 2007. Cape Verde, Liberia, Mali and Senegal each send 10 participants to China each year, while Côte d’Ivoire sends 50 participants, as do countries such as Namibia and Tanzania. Sierra Leone sends 30. Beginning in 2021, Kenya has committed to training 400 police, paramilitaries and military personnel in China every year.
L’École supérieure de commandement de l’armée de terre à Nanjing, en Chine.
The Higher Army Command School in Nanjing, China. (Photo by Elliott Fabrizio)
African officers rated Chinese MPFs at lower levels and in technical subjects such as medicine, computer science, technology, and engineering, as well as in certain functional areas such as the organization and leadership of small units.
“They are adapted to our situation,” said a graduate of the Academy of Artillery and Air Defence, who, like others, asked for anonymity because she is still an active officer.
Another member of the PLA’s infantry school said, “The [Chinese) approach to national security is home-based, like ours. Our threats are linked to lack of development, social divides, etc. You can’t defeat cattle thieves and bandits with a regular structure; you need small mobile units that can survive without support and operate in difficult conditions. What we are learning here is in line with this reality.”
On the other hand, African officers consider Chinese MPFs to be strategically weak, as is the LPA National Defense University. Interaction between students is limited, as foreign and Chinese students study on different campuses. African officers also argue that the quality of programmes at this level is lower than that of the United States and the United Kingdom on international issues, critical analysis and national security strategy. In American schools, African students work with their American colleagues and can criticize their teachers and make their own views. This is not possible in China. Joint combat (also known as interarmes for the army), where all combat weapons are integrated to achieve complementary effects (a concept of great interest to African countries) is taught at all levels of American vocational and technical education. In China, she was taught only at the National Defense University.
“You can’t compare what I did here with what my colleagues did at the LPA National Defense University,” said a former African student at the US Army War School.
China offers more training opportunities than Western and other countries.Despite these drawbacks, China offers more training opportunities than Western countries and other countries such as Brazil, India, Pakistan, and Turkey.
“We like to send our men to Sandhurst, the UK Defence Academy, West Point, Fort Leavenworth and the Washington National Defence University,” said one officer. “But if the course directors in Nanjing, Beijing and Dalian show up and give me 20, 30, 40 places, then that’s where I’ll send my officers.”
African civil society and democracy activists are less optimistic about the Chinese MPFs, which they associate with China’s closed political system. More generally, 70 per cent of Africans regularly declare that democracy is favourable to their country in comparison with any other type of government, and 77 per cent reject the one-party system. Yet one in six Africans welcomes China’s engagement in Africa.
China’s armed forces have also been portrayed in a negative light in some countries, raising fears that they are “badly” influencing their African students. The 2011 revelations that the loan for the construction of the National Defence University of zimbabwe was repaid from diamond mining revenues partly belonging to the zimbabwean army and Anjin, a Chinese company whose sadly corrupt reputation is notorious, tarnished the image of the PLA in zimbabwe.
China’s armed forces suffered a new public-relations setback in neighboring South Africa in 2016, when a rebel unit trained at the Chinese People’s Armed Forces Academy was illegally deployed to some of South Africa’s most sensitive security institutions.
These incidents fuel speculation that China’s military training programs are being used to strengthen the grip of ruling political parties. One of the aim is to direct their armies towards the protection of the regime.
Future prospects
Participants au programme à l’école de guerre de l’armée nigériane.
Participants in the programme at the Nigerian Army War School. (Photo: e-forces)
China’s “military political work” can be expected to grow in the coming years, given Africa’s strong demand for vocational training and the CCP’s efforts to restore its pre-Dover’s professional training activities. The extent to which the training encouraged countries to adopt the Coalition model remained a matter of concern, particularly within civil society. Some of the recent coups in Africa have been precipitated by the perception of some military officers that they were actors of political parties in their own right.
Given Africa’s tragic legacy of military government, African countries should ensure adherence to well-established African standards for education and training of cadres and military management. These include a non-political army, loyalty to the constitution, civilian control of the army, and systems for educating and training managers that pass on these qualities at all levels.
Complementary resources
Paul Nantulya, “China’s United Front Strategy”, Lighting, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 5 September 2023.
Paul Nantulya, “China promotes its Coalition in Africa” model, Lighting, Africa’s Center for Strategic Studies, July 28, 2020.
Phillip C. Saunders, Arthur S. Ding, Andrew Scobell, Andrew N.D. Yang and Joel Wuthnow (eds.), Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms. (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2019).
Phillip Carter III, Raymond Gilpin and Paul Nantulya, “China in Africa: Opportunities, Challenges, and Options” in Scott D. McDonald and Michael C. Burgoyne, eds, China’s Global Influence: Perspectives and Recommendations, Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, September 2019.
Paul Nantulya, “China’s Growing Strategic Activities in Africa are based on Chinese hard power,” Lighting, Center for Strategic Studies for Africa, January 17, 2019.
Xi Jinping, “Strengthening cooperation to advance the transformation of the global governance system and jointly promote the noble task of peace and development for humanity” (z:z), Xinhua, 28 September 2016.
Joseph Siegle, “The Political and Security Crises in Burundi”, Testimony before the Subcommittee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate on Africa and Global Health Policy, 10 December 2015.
“China’s Traditional Cultural Values and National Identity”, Window into China Series, Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for World Politics, November 21, 2013.
Christopher Clapham, “From Liberation Movement to Government: Past Legacies and the Challenge of Transition in Africa”, , Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, February 2013.