China’s $4.5 Billion Headache: The Niger-Benin Pipeline and the Limits of Non-Interference – The Diplomat

In February 2026, the Chinese Embassy in Niamey sent out a warning to its citizens in Niger, urging them to avoid high-risk areas and to activate their emergency plans. The warning followed a series of rebel attacks on the Niger-Benin pipeline operated by the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), and an offensive against Niamey International Airport in late January claimed by the Islamic State. 

For a country that has long made non-interference the cornerstone of its foreign policy, this alert speaks to a growing paradox. China, as it develops ever stronger economic relations with African states, increasingly finds itself drawn into the continent’s geopolitical dynamics.

The Niger-Benin pipeline is the longest in Africa: 1950 kilometers, ranging from the Agadem oil fields in southeastern Niger, to the Sèmè-Kpodji maritime terminal, on Benin’s Atlantic coast. It represents a total estimated investment of $4.5 billion and a clear ambition: to increase Nigerien oil production from 20,000 to 90,000 barrels a day and open access to international markets for Niger, a landlocked country and one of the poorest in the world. For the CNPC it is also a way to recover a $400 million loan granted to Niger in April 2024. 

However, nothing went according to plan. The 2023 coup against President Mohamed Bazoum triggered a series of crises. Under General Abdourahamane Tchiani’s regime, Niger broke its ties with France, moved closer to Russia, and closed its borders with Benin after accusing it of harboring French troops. In retaliation, Benin blocked oil exports from its port. 

Although committed to its principle of non-interference, China found itself acting as a mediator through the Benin-Niger Intergovernmental Committee, hoping to unlock its own investment. A shipment of a million barrels left Sèmè in May 2024, but the very next month, the Patriotic Movement for Freedom and Justice (MPLJ), a rebel group supporting Bazoum, attacked the pipeline. Exports, which briefly resumed in August 2024, have been regularly interrupted ever since.

The Niger-Benin pipeline has become a test for Beijing’s ability to secure its strategic interests in an unstable environment, especially since it lacks the traditional tools of imperial powers: military bases, security alliances, or an overt willingness to pick sides. China has been supplying Niger with combat drones and howitzers since 2018, and the CNPC is the only oil producer operating in the country. However, when MPLJ rebels warn the CNPC that any collaboration with the junta exposes it to attacks, Beijing finds itself in the uncomfortable position of being a de facto political actor in Niger’s internal conflict. 

This whole situation is part of a broader shift in China’s engagement in Africa. After more than two decades of growth, financial flows have finally reversed. According to a study published in early 2026 by One Data, African countries are now repaying China more than they are receiving in new flows, representing a $52 billion turnover in five years. Loans from the Chinese government to African states culminated to $28 billion in 2016, only to drop to around $2 billion per year since 2021. Instead, China introduced the “small is beautiful” model – a diplomatic way of saying it is scaling back its ambitions. 

During the last Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in September 2024 in Beijing, Xi Jinping promised $50 billion in funding over three years, but the disconnect between the summit pledges and actual disbursements has become an issue of its own. 

The Niger-Benin pipeline, a legacy of the era of mega-infrastructures projects, serves as a painful reminder of what that earlier strategy can lead to when political conditions change. It also represents a test of credibility: if Beijing is unable to successfully carry out a $4.5 billion investment, the largest in the region, what message does that send to African governments that are still evaluating their options among potential partners? 

Even in Benin – the African country where, according to Afrobarometer surveys, China enjoys the most favorable image as well as where the gap between preference for the Chinese model over the American one is the widest – critical voices are emerging. After FOCAC 2024, the usually restrained Beninese press published some scathing editorials – talking about an Africa that humiliates itself from summit to summit or comparing ChinAfrica as the continuity of FrancAfrique. 

The announcement by Xi Jinping that China was eliminating tariffs on goods from African countries clearly illustrates the gap between rhetoric and results. The United States had established a similar program – AGOA – as early as 2000; 26 years later, its impact on African economies remains marginal due to a lack of sufficient production capacity, adequate infrastructure, and diversification of exportable products. There is little reason to believe that the Chinese initiative will yield different results in the absence of structural reforms. 

The Niger-Benin pipeline will not be the last test of its kind for Beijing. On a continent where coups d’état are on the rise, where rebel groups are targeting foreign infrastructure, and where people are increasingly questioning the nature of partnerships, the non-interference stance is becoming harder to maintain. In many African countries, like Niger, China has become a deeply entrenched player, with citizens to protect, pipelines to secure, and debts to collect. 

The question is no longer whether Beijing is meddling in African affairs, but how much longer it can pretend that it isn’t.