China's engagement with peace and security issues in Africa has become more prominent in recent years. This can be seen, for example, in its more active role in peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and conflict mediation efforts, and in the decisions that were taken to enhance security cooperation at the 6th Forum for China-Africa Cooperation summit in December 2015. The School of Public Policy at Central European University organized a half-day conference on March 29th to explore some of these issues.
The focus of the first panel was on three specific instances that shed light on how China's engagement with peace and security in Africa has changed. "It's not the largest exporter of arms to Africa," explained Zhang Hui, but China does export arms to two-thirds of African countries. Zhang explained that this was why it was interesting to take a look at China's engagement with the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which sets international standards to regulate conventional arms transfers. Zhang, who is a project coordinator with Saferworld's China Programme, noted that China had engaged "constructively" in the negotiation process, and that it had "gradually" shifted its position partly in response to the concerns of many developing countries. China agreed, for example, that small arms and light weapons (SALW) be included within the scope of the treaty, and that the treaty not include a ban on the transfer of weapons to Non-State Actors, even though China itself does not permit these transfers. It also dropped its opposition to the inclusion of human rights and international humanitarian law criteria in the treaty. Zhang suggested that these were positions China might not have taken just several years earlier. In the end, however, China decided not to support the treaty because of the last minute decision to adopt the treaty by majority vote, and not by consensus as had been agreed previously.
University College Cork Lecturer Niall Duggan offered a second case study to show how China was intervening in peace and security in Africa focusing on China's UN peacekeeping mission to Mali in 2013. Duggan explained that China has contributed more troops to UN peacekeeping missions than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council. Its mission to Mali, however, was the first time that Chinese combat troops had participated in a UN peacekeeping mission in both a guard and support function. It had not done this in the past because of its "non-interference" policy in Africa, and elsewhere. Duggan commented that although Sino-Mali relations were politically quite close, Mali was "not that important," and that this was one of the reasons that China chose to intervene "there and not elsewhere." He went on to say that although its actions in Mali did mark a change in Chinese policy, China was especially concerned that it not be seen as a "neo-colonial actor" and so was moving cautiously.
"Protecting Chinese nationals abroad was not officially recognized as a priority for the Chinese government until 2012," explained Mathieu Duchâtel, senior policy fellow and deputy director of the Asia and China Programme at the European Council of Foreign Relations. In recent years, however, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Chinese students and travelers overseas. Duchâtel pointed out that no one knew the exact number of Chinese nationals living overseas, but that the best estimate was that there were now an estimated 5.5 million living outside China, and that this posed "a challenge without historical precedent."
Duchâtel pointed to the Libya evacuation in 2011as a "turning point" for China because of the global awareness of the situation, the involvement of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the role of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), and the potential for domestic gain. Duchâtel explained that Libya provided the Chinese government with an important opportunity to demonstrate to people in China that it could rescue its nationals when it needed to do so.
Another issue that Duchâtel explored was the nature and role of the facility that China has built in Djibouti. "This is a military base," said Duchâtel, "and the expectation is that there will be more such facilities." There are other indications as well, such as the presence of Ministry of Public Security personnel in a growing number of countries and the more active involvement of the PLA overseas, that China will be a more interventionist country in the future. "The changes in Chinese policy have been driven by unforeseen events though, and are not part a grand pre-planned strategy," he said.
The second panel focused on the trends, challenges, and opportunities that China's changing engagement with peace and security in Africa presents to China, and to other countries and regional and international bodies as well. "There is a security-development nexus which is of great relevance when looking at Chinese engagement in Africa," said Ilaria Carrozza, a PhD student at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She went on to observe that this link has been central to Sino-African security relations dating back to the 1950s. "Its approach has evolved and grown over time though," she said. Carrozza noted that China enjoys a "privileged position" in Africa as both a "quasi-great power" and "a developing country" that enables it to promote its own initiatives (such as the naval base in Djibouti) while also becoming more actively involved with African multilateral institutions such as the African Union. As China becomes more involved, it is also raising alarms including in some African countries. Carrozza said that China's willingness to adapt its policies in response to these concerns can be seen in its decision to promote the concept of "responsible protection" (RP) as an alternative to the more controversial "responsibility to protect" (R2P) doctrine.
"It is partly right and partly wrong," said Zhang Chun, deputy director of the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, "to say that China's stronger engagement in African peace and security since 2012 is due to national interests." He went on to describe how China's national interests had changed and become more comprehensive and more nuanced in recent years, in part because of changes in Africa itself. "The nature of security challenges is shifting from traditional top-down (government-waged) structural violence to bottom-up (society-waged) non-structural violence," he said. Zhang noted also that one of the reasons that China is more engaged in African peace and security issues is that many African countries and organizations have asked China to get more involved. "Africans want China to participate, and to contribute more," he said.
"Non-intervention and non-interference are complementary, but separate," observed Chris Alden, associate senior research fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs. He went on to say that although it was clear that China has committed itself to intervening in Africa, it was not at all clear what type of actor China would be. Alden said that China could choose to be an architect and play an "assertive role" as the west has done; it could be a builder and accept the existing architectural plan; or it could be a "sub-contractor" choosing to intervene selectively and periodically. The choices it makes will have an enormous impact on China, on Africa, and globally.