ABSTRACT
Nigeria, China’s third-largest trade partner, second-largest export market, and third-largest investment destination in Africa, faces daunting problems of terrorism in North East and insurgency in South South. This insecurity threatens the very foundation of the Nigerian state. However, with China’s enormous economic interests in Nigeria, it is expected that the Asian country should play a prominent role in mitigating Nigeria’s insecurity; this, on the contrary, is not so in fact. Two reasons may account for this: first, China’s role in Nigeria’s insecurity falls under the wider responsibility of China–Africa peace and security cooperation, which in itself is opaque when it comes to dealing with individual nations in Africa. Second, there seems to be little synergy between established instruments of China–Nigeria military cooperation and the latter’s own fight against insecurity. This is because the military cooperation between Nigeria and China is not primarily geared towards tackling the West African country’s peace and insecurity, but reflects predominantly the self-interest of the two governments. Thus, this chapter argues that, while the issues of African peace and security are now a prominent feature of Chinese foreign policy rhetoric, there seems to be a contradiction and void in actual policy pragmatism.
