The spectre of another Chinese military base in Africa has long raised alarms in Washington, but analysts say the US should focus on the possibility of Beijing gaining a foothold on West Africa’s Atlantic coast or key Indian Ocean ports, rather than fret about its ambitions elsewhere on the continent.
China has only one base on the continent, located in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. But the Pentagon says Beijing is planning to build others in countries including Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Namibia, the Seychelles and Tanzania.
Meanwhile, the United States has a permanent base in Djibouti, an air force facility in Niger, and troops in Kenya and Somalia.
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Dawn Murphy, an associate professor of national security strategy at the US National War College, said in a recent policy brief that “preventing Chinese and Russian basing in sub-Saharan Africa should be a lower priority”. The brief was published last week by the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.
Murphy said the US government should focus on preventing China from building a military base on the west coast of Africa that could provide Beijing naval access to the Atlantic.
The other possibility that should worry Washington would be a base in East Africa that could significantly affect important maritime routes, known as sea lines of communication (SLOCs), and provide China with more power projection ability in the Indian Ocean, according to Murphy.
“Other potential Chinese basing locations in the region should be less of a concern,” she said.
According to the paper, China seeks to secure and maintain access to resources and markets and safeguard its citizens and businesses abroad.
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Beijing has repeatedly denied Washington’s assertions that it is planning more military bases. In 2021, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied reports of new facilities and urged the US to “abandon the outdated Cold War mentality and zero-sum game mindset, and stop issuing irresponsible reports year after year”.
Murphy said a Chinese naval facility on West Africa’s Atlantic coast would be the most significant Chinese security threat for Washington in the region because of its proximity to the US and its potential as a site for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to rearm and repair naval vessels during a US-China armed conflict.
General Stephen Townsend, the former head of the US Africa Command (Africom), raised similar concerns last year about a potential Chinese military base on the west coast of Africa, especially in Equatorial Guinea, where China has already built a commercial port.
“The thing I think I’m most worried about is this military base on the Atlantic coast, and where they have the most traction for that today is in Equatorial Guinea,” Townsend said.
In February 2022, senior US diplomatic officials travelled to Equatorial Guinea to convince the country not to sign a base deal with China.
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The Pentagon has also said China plans to set up a military base in Kenya, Madagascar, the Seychelles or Tanzania.
“Any of those locations could endanger access to key SLOCs along the east coast of Africa, enhance China’s power projection in the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific region more broadly, and intensify competition between China and India,” Murphy’s policy brief noted.
According to Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies at Washington’s National Defence University, four of the seven African ports capable of berthing major Chinese combatants are on the Indian Ocean: Kenya’s Mombasa, Doraleh in Djibouti, Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam, and Victoria in Seychelles.
The others – the Angolan port of Luanda, Namibia’s Walvis Bay and Lekki, Nigeria – are on the Atlantic.
He said that although Atlantic ports could accommodate Chinese warships, Equatorial Guinea was not a top contender for a Chinese base.
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Nantulya said China was focused on a “two oceans strategy” centred on the Indian and Pacific oceans.
This strategy seeks to establish “strategic maritime strong points” – a euphemism for military logistics facilities – and solve the so-called Malacca Dilemma, in which China’s imports from Africa and the Middle East traverse major maritime chokepoints like the Malacca Strait that are patrolled by the US Navy and other adversaries of Beijing.
“Authoritative Chinese military writings talk about diverting Chinese traffic away from this strait and overland into China, and that the starting points are in the Indian Ocean in littoral states like Djibouti, Kenya and Tanzania in Africa, along with Gwadar, Pakistan and Kyaukpyu, Myanmar in Asia,” Nantulya said.
But China’s focus on the Indo-Pacific did not necessarily disqualify countries along the Atlantic Coast as Chinese naval bases, Nantulya said.
For example, the ports of Bata and Malabo in Equatorial Guinea offer many advantages, such as the ability to berth major Chinese warships. Equatorial Guinea could also potentially play a support role in extending China’s anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden to the Gulf of Guinea – a region of growing Chinese interest, Nantulya said.
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Luke Patey, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said from Washington’s perspective, the rising competition with Beijing had drawn attention to the possibility that China could expand its military involvement in Africa.
“Just as Washington tends to overdramatise possibilities of China establishing new military bases in Africa, Beijing has a track record of downplaying its military presence on the continent,” Patey said.
“For years, Beijing talked down the purposes of its military base at Djibouti, which today has extensive military capabilities that extend far beyond the logistical needs of any peace or humanitarian mission.”
But he said the US was not the only one pushing the message about the PLA’s African ambitions, as some Chinese military planners were also proponents of building new bases on the continent.
“These plans may still pale in comparison to the hundreds of bases operated by the US, but it extends China’s military reach and that disturbs Washington. The American military is slowly learning that the days of it being unchallenged in the world are running out,” Patey said.
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Lina Benabdallah, a China-Africa specialist at Wake Forest University and a visiting fellow at the Centre for African Studies at Harvard University, said the view in Washington was “very much a zero-sum game”.
“Where China gains a military advantage, it is viewed as threatening to the US,” Benabdallah said.
A few years ago, the US started the process of reducing its military footprint in Africa in favour of other theatres it has prioritised to contain China’s influence.
“In some ways, one can say that in Africa, the US has been reactive to China’s calculations and strategy,” Benabdallah said. “This concern over basing follows this reactive behaviour.
“I would imagine another base would consolidate Beijing’s influence in the continent and expand its sea power.”
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As for Russia’s military ambitions on the continent, Murphy said that since Moscow had limited security interests in sub-Saharan Africa and was now distracted by the war in Ukraine, potential Russian bases should not be a major concern for the US.
It was reported in 2020 that Russia planned to set up a military base in Sudan and was seeking base access in other African locations such as Eritrea and Somaliland.
However, its plans in Sudan were scuttled because of the 2021 military coup in the country. It would have been Russia’s first base in sub-Saharan Africa since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Patey said he was sceptical that plans for the base in Sudan would be revived.
“I continue to doubt this possibility. For decades on, Russia’s largest export to Sudan has been plans. Plans for a military base. Plans for an oil refinery. Plenty of plans, but little reality. It may one day materialise, but there are no strong indicators yet,” Patey said.