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Publisher’s note: This article documents humanitarian action undertaken by Chinese troops in six UN peacekeeping missions and shows that Chinese peacekeepers engaged in very similar types of humanitarian action regardless of their unit type or mission area. The patterns in their behaviour strongly suggest that their activities constitute a humanitarian program that is coordinated systematically at the level of China’s national military organization. Potential explanations for the humanitarianism of Chinese peacekeepers include China’s broader foreign policy objectives, its internal model of civil–military relations, the ‘developmental peace’ theory of peacekeeping and domestic public relations in China. Despite the UN’s official policy of discouraging humanitarian action by military actors, national contingents can still implement humanitarian tactics largely due to the decentralized and fragmented command and control structure of UN peacekeeping missions. More broadly, such failure to protect the humanitarian space speaks to shortcomings of the current system of UN peacekeeping. Overall, closer attention to the role of national military doctrines and national military cultures would add significantly to our understanding of the behaviour of UN peacekeepers.
Publisher’s note: This article documents humanitarian action undertaken by Chinese troops in six UN peacekeeping missions and shows that Chinese peacekeepers engaged in very similar types of humanitarian action regardless of their unit type or mission area. The patterns in their behaviour strongly suggest that their activities constitute a humanitarian program that is coordinated systematically at the level of China’s national military organization. Potential explanations for the humanitarianism of Chinese peacekeepers include China’s broader foreign policy objectives, its internal model of civil–military relations, the ‘developmental peace’ theory of peacekeeping and domestic public relations in China. Despite the UN’s official policy of discouraging humanitarian action by military actors, national contingents can still implement humanitarian tactics largely due to the decentralized and fragmented command and control structure of UN peacekeeping missions. More broadly, such failure to protect the humanitarian space speaks to shortcomings of the current system of UN peacekeeping. Overall, closer attention to the role of national military doctrines and national military cultures would add significantly to our understanding of the behaviour of UN peacekeepers.
Publisher’s note: In analysing trends in Chinese defence engagement and their impact on defence development in African states, it is important to consider both China's changing policy priorities and its capabilities for the provision of defence support. China's international ambitions and its economic development contribute to its emergence as a key supporter of defence capability development in Africa, occupying a crucial niche as a provider of support, particularly arms transfers, appropriate to evolving local requirements. The economic and politico-military imperatives driving China's engagement of Africa, which stem from its economic reforms and re-emergence as a great power, are facilitating defence modernisation by accelerating the introduction of modern arms in substantial quantities. The commercial importance of arms exports and the growing importance of strategic ties strongly situate China to help sustain processes of defence capability development in African states over the long term.
Publisher’s note: China’s engagement in Africa is increasingly defined by its role in bolstering peace and security. Beijing has signalled greater political will with peacekeeping deployments on the continent, as well as increasing capabilities with its new naval base in Djibouti. Positive outcomes could include greater Chinese support for African security efforts and increased regional security cooperation with the United States. But these will depend substantially on how China's wider strategic outlook and relationships evolve.
Publisher’s note: While debates continue about China’s role in sub-Saharan Africa, there is growing consensus that China is a different kind of development partner. One distinct feature of Chinese partnerships is that they include support for the tobacco industry, a sector other donor states and institutions shun. Not only is tobacco a primary agricultural export in a number of Africa states, the state-owned Chinese National Tobacco Corporation is the largest tobacco company in the world. This paper analyses Chinese support for the tobacco industry in three states – Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia – documenting how co-operation is shaped by Chinese state capitalism and assessing the development and governance implications. Following an introduction situating the analysis within the context of China–Africa co-operation and tobacco’s global value chain, Chinese engagement in each country is analysed. Findings indicate that, despite differences across case studies in terms of development outcomes, common governance implications are apparent. African elites initiated tobacco-related co-operation to meet their interests, but Chinese interests dominated implementation. Consequently, Chinese investments have maintained hierarchal governance of an exploitive and harmful industry. Analyses of Chinese African co-operation need to move beyond public–private paradigms and interrogate the nuances of Chinese state capitalism in Africa.
Publisher’s note: China’s engagement in South Sudan has been branded a crucial test case for the country’s foreign and security policy in Africa. Investment in the oil sector is significant, and Chinese political engagement in conflict mediation and peacekeeping are unparalleled. Will the experiences gathered provide China with reasons to extend its engagement, is South Sudan a model or exceptional case? In this context three sectors will be explored: the economic, political and security sphere. This article finds that there are few reasons to assume that South Sudan is a role model. Access to oil was never critically important, and oil revenue is fuelling the conflict. The Chinese model of developmental peace and conflict mediation preferring non-punitive diplomacy are problematic. The peacekeeping mission could not stop the fighting but succeeded in setting up civilian protection sites. In sum, the South Sudan engagement has not produced favorable outcomes and is unlikely to be replicated.
Publisher’s note: Using data from 1995 to 2017, this article shows that China plays a positive role in mitigating poverty and inequality in Africa. Namely, imports from China, especially imports of machinery and equipment but not manufactured goods, alleviate substantially poverty in the region. In addition, China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) and China’s engagement in infrastructure projects in the continent help not only eradicate poverty, but also narrow income inequality. However, total exports or exports of raw materials and fuels to China are irrelevant to income distribution. We also compare these impacts with the impacts of economic links with the United States (US) and find insignificant effects of the US’s imports and FDI on income distribution but some positive effects of exports to the US on poverty in Africa. Our findings are robust when both the fractional nature of poverty and inequality indices and their correlation are taken into account.
Publisher’s note: In looking at the case of Niger, this article demonstrates that there have been a lot of similarities between China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched in 2013 and its ‘going out’ strategy initiated in the late 1990s. Prior to 2013, many of the BRI’s objectives and strategies were already at work in Africa, and particularly in socioeconomically poor, landlocked countries that badly need infrastructure and connectivity. It also shows that China has been ready to invest in projects that are not necessarily profitable in the short term to consolidate its economic and diplomatic presence in the targeted country as well as to help its large state firms growing and internationalizing. It then demonstrates that although Niger did not belong in the initial group of countries targeted by the BRI, this initiative has contributed to deepening China’s economic and political influence in Niger, particularly to the detriment of France. Finally, this article highlights that both in Africa, particularly in the Sahel region, and in the BRI countries, China is facing emerging security challenges, continuing to mainly rely on others to overcome them.
Publisher’s note: This article explores and explains the drivers of the EU-China-Africa trilateral cooperation initiative. In order to do so a qualitative assessment was made of how well the various hypotheses flowing from three candidate theories neorealism, institutionalism and the bureaucratic politics model (BPM) fit this policy initiative. It specifically tests them across three distinct stages of the policy cycle, including issue identification, decision-making and policy implementation. Cutting the dependent variable into policy stages allows us to see if the independent variables truly are powerful. This study demonstrates that institutionalism contributes to a better understanding of every distinct stage of the policy process regarding the EU-China-Africa trilateral cooperation initiative. Aspects of neorealism illuminate some stages of the policy process as well, while BPM is only applicable to a limited degree.
Publisher’s note: This article examines the upstream–downstream integration model in the context of Sino–African petroleum engagement (in four countries in particular) as a means to evaluate China’s capacity to export its own experiences or development model to other developing countries. The discourse of so-called developmental resource nationalism provides the theoretical orientation. The article finds that China is able to share its development experiences to promote industrialisation and improve local socioeconomic conditions through concrete project building. However, the effect of such ‘exports’ is problematic and is dependent on several specific conditions. The article concludes that China is not in a position to export to other countries a fully-fledged or revolutionary developmental model, even in a narrowly defined industrial sector.
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