Sunday April 24, 2022
Mogadishu (HOL) - Chinese ambassador to Somalia FEI
Shengchao has dismissed reports that the Chinese government seeks to build a
military base in Somalia.
In a recent interview, the Commander of U.S. Africa Command,
U.S. Army General Stephen Townsend, said that Somalia and China had discussed
plans to build a Chinese military base inside Somalia.
“There are conversations between the Chinese and
the Somalis that happen regularly; we’ll just have to see. They’ve discussed
many things. They have discussed the base. Somalis tell us they are our
partners, and they also want a partnership with the Chinese but not about the
base”, the commander said in the interview with VOA.
The Somali government hasn’t yet commented.
However, the ambassador who was speaking to a local media
outlet in Mogadishu has described the statement by the commander as
"false."
"China does not want to build a military base in
Somalia. We have not discussed that with Somalia. I do not know where this
information came from,”said the Chinese ambassador to Mogadishu.
The Chinese government has recently donated nearly $5
million worth of military hardware, including vehicles, to Somalia to assist
the country in its fight against terrorism.
During a ceremony on 18 March at the Port of Mogadishu, the
Chinese Ambassador, Fei Shengchao, handed over five water bowsers, five fuel
trucks, 20 offroad trucks, and five high mobility field ambulances, and 22
metal/mine detectors to the Somalian defense minister Abdikadir Mohamed Nur
Jama.
The US-China battle for influence in the Horn of Africa has
been widely felt inside Somalia.