China offers to send security team to Nigeria

China has offered to send criminal investigation experts to Nigeria to help tackle the country’s security problems.

The Chinese ambassador Cui Jianchun disclosed the offer on Wednesday during an event at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria to celebrate a Chinese-funded scholarship programme.

Further details have yet to be disclosed, but the offer follows a spate of attacks in the West African country, which has been battling a series of long-running insurgencies, that prompted the Chinese embassy to hold a meeting on Thursday with Chinese companies to discuss security measures.

“China’s central government is really concerned about the security situation in Nigeria and also Chinese nationals in Nigeria,” Cui said, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

“So now the central government made the decision to send a high-level delegation from the criminal investigation experts with real experience.

“They come to Nigeria and get to talk to the people, the government, how can they find a way to work together to overcome the challenge they are facing.”

China has been offering military and security training to African countries for decades, and analysts said it has stepped up its engagement in recent years.

“China has launched assistance programmes and helped train African military personnel under the Belt and Road Initiative, and in areas of law and order, UN peacekeeping missions, fighting piracy and combating terrorism,” it said.

A report released last month by London-based think tank the Institute for the Study of Civil Society said China used its military training for foreigners, including ideological education, to promote its model of governance.

It said some of those who received the training later became leaders of the countries, including Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe. More recently, it has trained troops from Namibia and Rwanda

Although China has never disclosed the exact number of African military officers who had received training in China, the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimated in a report earlier this year that the number stood at“ tens of thousands”.

Timothy Heath, a security specialist from US think tank Rand Corporation, said China’s training programmes are part of a broader effort to cultivate clients among the elites of the African countries.

“The strengthening of PLA contacts with military elites and [Chinese Communist Party] contacts with local political elites can result in a sympathetic elite power network in each country who might support Beijing’s preferences over those of Western countries,” said Heath.

Sun Yun, director of the China Programme at the Stimson Centre, a Washington-based think tank, said: “The teaching scope is broad, which contains China studies, Chinese military thoughts, military strategis, and so on. All great powers do it. and it is always tied to advancing bilateral relations.”

Malcolm Davis, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the US isn’t “so focused on Africa” although it maintained a presence to counter radical Islamist groups.

“Africa is a lesser priority than the Indo-Pacific, to deter a Chinese move against Taiwan, or to deter Russia from threatening NATO. So China fills the gaps in US presence, expands its influence, and weakens regional support for the US,” he said.