According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) as of 2019, China was the second largest arms producer and was fifth in terms of its global defense exports, with a global 5.2 percent share behind the US, Russia, France, and Germany. One of the regions driving the rise of Chinese arms exports is Africa, where China’s share of arms exports rose by 55 percent between 2012 and 2017. Likewise, the total share of African arms imports coming from China rose from 8.4 percent to 17 percent in that period. Between 2009 and 2018 the share of African arms imports from China has grown to 20 percent (US$ 3.2 billion) of China’s overall arms exports.
