The Militarization of China’s Presence in Africa: Strategic Reorientation or Pragmatic Response?

Abstract

Amid rapid transformations in the international system, this study seeks to analyze the strategic dimensions of the shift in China’s soft-power instruments in Africa, with particular emphasis on how “development” is being reformulated as a façade for an agenda of soft geopolitical militarization. It further examines how China deploys conventional economic and developmental tools within an intentional dual-use framework that simultaneously serves developmental objectives as well as security and strategic ends. The study reaches several findings, the most significant of which is that this growing entanglement between development and militarization does not signal a rupture with China’s traditional approach. Rather, it constitutes a natural extension of a “geo-security protection of interests” logic, especially in security-fragile environments such as the African Sahel and the Horn of Africa. This shift unfolds within a regional and international context marked by intensifying competition between established powers (France and the United States) and rising actors (China, Russia, and India), thereby rapidly reshaping influence maps across the African continent.