China-Africa Military Relations

The blog War Is Boring recently ran a piece titled "China Is Getting Ready to Surge Troops into Africa: Military Deploying to Protect Beijing's People and Investments" by Peter Dorrie.  The commentary accurately reports my comments, although I believe part of the heading "China Is Getting Ready to Surge Troops into Africa" is misleading.  China is deploying about 700 combat troops to join its noncombat contingent with the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.  To the best of my knowledge, no additional Chinese troops are scheduled to deploy in Africa.  At the same time, China is concerned that its growing number of nationals and interests in Africa may be subject to increasing threats.  At some point, this may lead to more military engagement.

Dorrie published another version of this story on 24 January 2015 titled "China Deploying Troops to Africa to Protect Its  Investments and Nationals."