China–Somalia relations

Sino-Somali relations

China	Somalia

China–Somalia relations were established on 14 December 1960. The two countries signed their first trade agreement in June 1963.

History

Somalia and China have a long relations in terms of trade, military, cultural and even linguistic. The Somalis traded with the Ancient Shang and Zhou dynasties of China.

Exotic animals such as the giraffe caught and sold by Somali merchants were very popular in medieval China.

Medieval

Relations between Somalia and China starts well before the medieval times. Through trade, they established good relations. Giraffes, zebras and incense were exported to the Ming Empire of China, which established Somali merchants as leaders in the commerce between the Asia and Africa, and in the process influenced the Chinese language with the Somali language and vice versa. The Chinese exported celadon wares, spices and muskets in return for horses, exotic animals and ivory. The prominent Hui-Chinese explorer, mariner, diplomat and fleet admiral, Zheng He, arrived in his fourth and fifth voyage to the Somali cities of Mogadishu, Zeila, Merca and Berbera. Sa'id of Mogadishu a Somali explorer travelled to China in the 14th century, when China was ruled by the Yuan Dynasty, and noted the trading communities of the Chinese ports and cities.

Cold war era

The Sino-Soviet split had a large influence on China's relations with African countries; as early as 1964, Somalia was described as the "first major area of Sino-Soviet Rivalry in Africa". When the Somali side expelled Soviet representatives in late 1977, China agreed to take over many of the aid projects started by them.

Early modern era

In January 1991, the Chinese embassy in Mogadishu was closed down and its personnel withdrawn due to the intensification of the Somali Civil War and the overthrow of the Siad Barre government.

Mohamed Hassan Said, who had become the Somali ambassador to China in 1988, found himself stranded in Beijing without a government to serve. No longer receiving a salary and lacking the funds to travel out of the country, he and his family survived on handouts from embassies of other Muslim countries. He continued to live in Beijing for the next 18 years, and his children attended university in China. The Washington Post described him as China's "saddest foreign resident." Despite the lack of a central government in Somalia, the Chinese government nevertheless regarded Said as the legitimate Somali ambassador, and continued to invite him to diplomatic functions.

In 2006, Said was finally replaced as ambassador by Mohamed Awil, who also received no salary. Awil represented the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, and spoke out in favor of Chinese naval intervention to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia.

Present day

Despite the departure of most Chinese nationals from Somalia in 1991, the two countries maintained a small trading relationship; total trade volume in 2002 was US$3.39 million, with Somalia exporting US$1.56 million of goods to China and importing $1.83 million. In July 2007, the China state-owned oil company CNOOC signed an agreement with the Somali government to search for oil in the Mudug region of the semi-autonomous state of Puntland; a competing oil company estimated the total reserves in Puntland could amount to five to ten billion barrels of oil. However, an unnamed diplomat from a Western country stated that the Somali government had signed similar deals with other countries, which could bring CNOOC into conflict with foreign competitors over exploration and drilling rights.