China's Expanding Security Involvement in Africa: A Pillar for ‘China–Africa Community of Common Destiny’
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12585 |
| Date | 01 November 2018 |
| Author | Lei Yu |
| Published date | 01 November 2018 |
China’s Expanding Security Involvement in
Africa: A Pillar for ‘China–Africa Community of
Common Destiny’
Lei Yu
Liaocheng University, China
Abstract
China has been committed to creating an ‘all weather’relationship with Africa particularly since the new century by persis-
tently expanding its economic, political and, more recently, security involvement in Africa. China’s intensified peacekeeping
efforts in Africa reveals not only China’s desire for maintaining the regional peace and stability for its economic coopera-
tion and trade with Africa, but also China’s strategic intention of creating its own sphere of influence in the forms of
Sino-African ‘Community of Common Destiny’. In so doing, China wishes to cement its relations with Africa that it identi-
fies, together with those with other developing nations, as the ‘basis of China’s international relations’and provide itself
with a safe access to African markets, resources and investment destinations in order to sustain its economic growth that
bases its long cherished dream of restoring its past glory of ‘Fuqiang’(wealth and power) and rise in the global power
hierarchy.
Policy Implications
•Chinese foreign policy makers should be aware that China’s interest could be better protected if its peacekeeping and
peacebuilding activities in Africa could be conducted in line with the principles of advancing democratization, ‘good gov-
ernance’and human rights protection.
•Chinese decision-makers should be aware that it is in China’s interest to conduct peacekeeping and peacebuilding opera-
tions in Africa under the auspices of the UN despite its growing capability of intervening African affairs militarily.
•Foreign policy makers in Africa and elsewhere should be aware that China’s involvement in Africa’s peacekeeping and
peacebuilding is a mixed blessing: on the one hand, it may reinforce Africa’s peace and stability; on the other hand, it
may reinforce authoritarian regimes and undermine Africa’s democratization.
•Foreign policy makers in Africa and elsewhere should watch closely China’s security presence in Africa in the hopes of
incorporating it into international efforts in pushing for peacekeeping and peacebuilding as well as for Africa’s democrati-
zation and ‘good governance’.
The objectives of China’s security involvement in
Africa
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been committed
to creating an ‘all weather’relationship with Africa since the
late 1950s when its relations with the former Soviet Union
began to exacerbate. China has thereafter identified its rela-
tions with African and other developing states as the ‘basis
of its international relations’.
1
There is a convergence of
opinions among Chinese political leadership and academics
of international relations (IR) that Africa’s political espousal
of China at international arena constitutes a significant com-
ponent of China’s global power and influence (Luo, 2013; p.
116; Zhang, 2014b; p. 25).
2
In addition to the political inter-
est, Africa as a whole has grown for China as an overseas
market, resource supplier and investment destination since
Deng Xiaoping launched the market reform in the late
1970s. Africa’s resources and economic potentials have
contributed to China’s economic growth that is perceived
by Deng Xiaoping as basing China’s ambition to rise as an
independent ‘pole’in global power system (Liu, 2007, p. 31;
Ye, 2004).
With China’s ascent at systemic (global) level, Chinese for-
eign policy makers are assigning more strategic significance
to the creation of a ‘more reasonable and fairer’world order,
an official phrase for China, the emerging superpower, to
challenge the existing world order dominated by the United
States, the established power (Xi, 2017). To this end, China
is in need of Africa’s political support as the latter is univer-
sally perceived by Chinese political leaders and IR academics
as a victim of the current world order, and therefore an ally
(Yan and Sha, 2017, p. 26; Zhang, 2014a, p. 61). Against the
backdrop of Africa’s political, economic and strategic signifi-
cance, China has substantially altered its security strategy
toward Africa by extending its involvement in Africa’s peace-
keeping and peacebuilding since Xi Jinping assumed
Global Policy (2018) 9:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12585 ©2018 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 9 . Issue 4 . November 2018 489
Research Article
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