China’s burgeoning economic and political interests in the developing world – particularly in the Middle East and Africa – will compel Beijing to undertake a more activist approach to foreign policy. This new reality contrasts with China’s longstanding position of non-interference and will inevitably force China to become more engaged in the events that unfold across the Middle East and Africa.
- China has become the world’s second-largest economy, with an average annual growth rate of 10 percent over the last three decades. The domestic legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party continues to depend on sustained economic growth.
- To fuel its expanding economy, China has become the second-largest oil consumer in the world behind the United States. It is projected to overtake the U.S. by the early 2030s, at which point it likely will import around 70 percent of its oil, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
- Currently, about 50 percent of China’s oil imports originate from the Middle East and an additional 23 percent from Africa. Both regions play an integral role in China’s “One Belt, One Road” economic initiative to develop regional trade routes.
- To facilitate the supply of natural resources, China often entices partnerships through direct investment and loans for infrastructure development. For example, China imports about 15 percent of the United Arab Emirates’s oil exports, and in 2015 China signed a $330 million agreement with Abu Dhabi for a development project at the UAE’s southern Mender oilfield to build pipelines, oil gathering stations, sewage systems and power transmission lines.
- In Africa, China is trading attractive infrastructure-development loans for political clout and access to natural resources. For example, China’s state-owned export-import bank, China Exim, provided $29.3 billion of development projects to African countries between 2002 and 2009, and this continues to increase. Approximately 85 percent of Chinese imports from the continent are either oil or minerals.
- In the Middle East, China maintains close military relations with Iran. The two countries signed a military cooperation agreement in November 2016 detailing joint counterterrorism training and military excises. Just this summer, Chinese and Iranian navies held a joint drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint for the global flow of oil.
Joseph DeTrani, former Director of East Asia Operations, CIA
“Since the Bandung Conference of 1955, China has adhered to a policy of "non-interference" in the affairs of other countries. Commensurate with this non-aligned, non-interference policy, China had invested heavily in economic projects in Africa, while maintaining a close relationship with countries in the Middle East, especially Iran. Over the years, China has increased its investment in infrastructure projects in Africa, better ensuring political support from these countries, while having unique access to the natural resources of these countries. This continues today, with the prospect that the "One Belt, One Road" initiative will permit China to become even more invested in infrastructure and trade-related developments with these countries.”
Joshua Eisenman, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin
“The reason why China is offering these kinds of deals, which are so attractive to these countries, is because at the end of the day, they don’t see the economics as the end game. They see it as a means to a political relationship that can then be exploited on the international stage or locally to facilitate other relationships. Now, I am not saying that they don’t want to get rich in the process, but they want to get rich with purpose.”
With the emergence of unconventional security threats throughout the Middle East and Africa – from piracy and transnational organized crime to terrorism and insurgency – there is growing concern among the leadership in Beijing about the security of Chinese nationals and interests overseas. This has led the country to undertake a more assertive and expansive approach to foreign policy than in the past.
Gordon Chang, Author, The Coming Collapse of China
“As China’s investments spread beyond its borders, the flag officers of the People’s Liberation Army have used protection of them as a justification for the expansion of the military. Especially evident in this regard is the argument that China must protect sea lanes.”
- Chinese workers often travel to the Middle East and Africa to work on Chinese development projects, such as the building of railways, ports, roads and other trade-enabling infrastructure. This creates a unique target set for extremist groups and criminal organizations, and adds a layer of vulnerability to Chinese efforts abroad.
- Incidents such as the abduction of 10 Chinese workers in 2014 by Boko Haram in Cameroon, the seizure of 29 workers in Sudan in 2012, or the case of the Chinese national kidnapped for ransom by ISIS in 2015 have become common enough to encourage change—albeit slowly—in China’s non-interference policy.
Bonnie S. Glaser, Director of the China Power Project, CSIS
“Whereas the United States has gone in and used special operations forces, for example, to rescue American hostages, and we do not pay terrorists who have taken hostages ransom to get them released, the Chinese do. The Chinese like to deal with these kinds of things quietly. So that would diminish the need in their minds for developing the capabilities, let’s say, to free Chinese hostages. They pay terrorists to get their people freed.”
China has begun subtly bolstering its military presence in the Middle East and Africa to better respond to crises as they develop.
- In 2011, Chinese naval vessels evacuated around 35,000 people, including a number of Chinese nationals, from Libya as the situation deteriorated. In March 2015, after the Saudis began their bombardment of Houthi positions near the southern Yemeni city of Aden, China redirected an anti-piracy vessel to evacuate hundreds of Chinese and foreign nationals.
- But China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti suggests a move toward further military involvement both in the Middle East and Africa. Many other countries, including the U.S., maintain military installations there because of its strategic location.
Gordon Chang, Author, The Coming Collapse of China
“It is no coincidence that China’s first overseas military base – although it is not called that – is for the navy in Africa, in Djibouti. Expect more in Africa, on Atlantic coastlines, including in Walvis Bay in Namibia.”
Instead of seeking to engage unilaterally in the Middle East or Africa, China often has deployed troops under the multilateral banner of United Nations peacekeeping, seeming to contribute to U.N. missions directly in the strategic interest of China.
- Of the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members, China has the most peacekeepers on the continent, with deployments of more than 2,500 troops to some six missions, including in Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and South Sudan.
- On Sept. 15, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $100 million in military aid to the African Union. Beijing supports capacity building in areas such as defense and counterterrorism across the continent, including arms sales to, and intelligence sharing with, regimes entrenched in civil war. For example, in May 2014, China offered Abuja satellite imagery and night vision goggles to aid in the fight against Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.
Joseph DeTrani, former Director of East Asia Operations, CIA
“China's United Nations peacekeeping efforts in Africa have increased exponentially over the years, supplying key African states with military equipment and training. China's joint naval base in Doraleh, Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa near the Indian Ocean, is its first overseas base for the People's Liberation Army (PLA). This is a significant development, since it could support Chinese naval forces traveling to Europe through the Suez Canal. With China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, future additional naval bases in Africa and the Middle East are likely, giving China considerable strategic reach. Thus, we should expect to see a more active and visible navy, with more Chinese security officials and workers visiting and working in select countries in Africa and the Middle East.”
To avoid the appearance of a hostile action by deploying Chinese troops abroad to protect Chinese workers and infrastructure, it seems much more likely that an influx of Chinese-affiliated private companies will provide security instead. The market for foreign-focused private security firms from China first began forming in 2004 and now extends to present-day ventures such as Shandong Huawei in Iraq.
- While these Chinese-based companies so far seem intended primarily for defensive purposes, it is possible that Beijing could turn to loosely-affiliated firms hiring foreign nationals to engage in deniable offensive operations against terrorist and insurgent groups in conflict areas with Chinese interests in the Middle East and Africa.
- One example that might suggest this move is Frontier Resources Group (FRG), a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based logistics firm Frontier Services Group (FSG) that is largely owned by the Chinese state-owned investment firm Citic Group. Chaired by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, FRG reportedly had a $23.3 million contract in 2015 with South Sudan to transport supplies and maintain the camps near its oil fields among the ongoing civil war. But for an additional $300 million, Prince, according to reporting by The Intercept, offered South Sudan a 341-strong foreign combat unit to conduct offensive operations against the country’s rebels.
Bonnie S. Glaser, Director of the China Power Project, CSIS
“I am very doubtful that the Chinese will be deploying their forces overseas at this point or anytime in the near future, except as part of U.N. peacekeeping operations. The evacuation of nationals from Libya was the first significant event, but that didn’t involve placing troops on another country’s soil; it was a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO). However, my guess is that there are cases in which Chinese private security services are being deployed to provide protection for Chinese workers and projects in places along the ‘One Belt, One Road,” where the country has significant investments, such as in Afghanistan. It is a big leap from there, however, for China to actually deploy its military outside of its borders and inside another country.”
Despite shared goals in combating terrorism and promoting stability in Africa and the Middle East, including for the continued flow of natural resources that fuels much of the global economy, China and the U.S. seldom operate in concert. China’s increasingly activist foreign policy in the Middle East and Africa may present a new challenge for the U.S., but could also offer a stabilizing hand to the betterment of U.S. interests in both regions.
Bonnie S. Glaser, Director of the China Power Project, CSIS
“Theoretically, it would make sense that the farther you are from China’s periphery, the more potential there is for U.S.-China cooperation because competition is less intense. For several years, the U.S. has tried to talk to China – military to military discussions – where the United States has given briefings on military activities in Africa in the hope that the Chinese would do the same and we might be able to find some common ground to work together. My understanding is that this has not made a lot of headway. The Chinese are quite suspicious of the United States and its intentions all over the world.”
Gordon Chang, Author, The Coming Collapse of China
“China is following the playbook of those nations who have expanded abroad before it. But Beijing’s interference today in, say, African matters is far more direct than the present-day tactics of others. The Chinese are, short of formal colonization, seeking as much control as they can get. That should prove counterproductive, at least in the long run.”
Levi Maxey is an analyst at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @lemax13.
