(This event is organised by MEI’s Political Economy Research Cluster.)

Abstract

Andrea Ghiselli, author of the book Protecting China’s Interests Overseas: Securitisation and Foreign Policy, will discuss Chinese foreign and security policymaking with Raffaello Pantucci, a researcher at RSIS whose work looks at security dynamics in the Eurasian heartland. Focusing on the broad territory that lies between MENA and South and Central Asia, Ghiselli and Pantucci will discuss China’s challenges in managing non-traditional security issues across this wide landscape and the gradual development of a Chinese strategic approach to defending its interests overseas.

With a footprint that has dramatically increased since the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative by President Xi Jinping in 2013, Chinese companies and institutions are increasingly having to manage a more complicated range of security threats. From terrorism to crime and political risk and geopolitical risks, Chinese firms and citizens find themselves in ever more precarious places and the Chinese state is still working out how to play a role in managing these risks. Moderated by MEI Principal Research Fellow Alessandro Arduino, Ghiselli and Pantucci will explore these questions and highlight particular issues Dr Ghiselli focuses on in his new book.

This public talk will be conducted online via Zoom on Wednesday, 5 May 2021 from 4.00pm to 5.30pm (SGT). All are welcome to participate. Successful registrants will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom details closer to the date of the event.

This event is free, however, registration is compulsory.

Event image taken from the cover of Protecting China’s Interests Overseas, Securitization and Foreign Policy by Andrea Ghiselli

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By Tan Feng Qin
Research Associate, Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore

Dr Andrea Ghiselli, assistant professor at Fudan University and Mr Raffaello Pantucci, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies gave short presentations examining the context and motivations behind China’s establishment of a base in Djibouti and its military presence in Tajikistan, before taking a range of questions from the audience.

 
China’s Base in Djibouti

Dr Ghiselli began by examining the circumstances around the opening of China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti and what it portends for China’s foreign policy in the Middle East. The base is the most visible and significant product of a long deliberation by China’s foreign and security policy elites on which tools of statecraft would be best for protecting China’s overseas interests. When the debate began in the early 2000s, these interests were defined by stakeholders in a very broad way. They have since become more clearly defined, and include access for Chinese companies to the region and the protection of the lives of Chinese nationals abroad.

The deliberation was long and mostly crisis driven, with the key turning point being the evacuation of almost 36,000 Chinese nationals from Libya in 2011 as unrest and civil war broke out. The roots of the base in Djibouti can be found in China’s concern over protecting the lives of its nationals overseas, and the view that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) should play a role in doing so. The most important evidence for this view is an article by Zhao Keshi (赵克石) in 2013 titled Strategic Thoughts on Accelerating Modernization of PLA Logistics in the New Situation (新形势下加快我军后勤现代化的战略思考) in the journal China Military Science (中国军事科学). Zhao was the leader of the logistics department of the PLA and a member of China’s Central Military Commission, and argued that China needed bases abroad, since it has global interests.

Although Djibouti was only one of several candidates for such a base, it soon became preferred over the others. China had already made a decision to send its first military attaché to Djibouti in 2012. Although Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen were potential candidates, the civil war in Yemen affected the viability of a base in both Yemen and Oman, while a base in Saudi Arabia did not appear to be a realistic option given the country’s ties with the US. Djibouti also held less diplomatic risk, since many countries already had bases there. The PLA navy had also become familiar with the port of Djibouti through participating in anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden since 2008. In 2015, negotiations over establishing the base was made public, and the base itself was developed in 2017.

 
Implications of the Base in Djibouti

It remains difficult to assess the implications of the Chinese base in Djibouti. It is smaller than its American counterpart, and although a deep and long pier is being completed and the base can host helicopters and supplies, it cannot host fighter jets or long-range military cargoes. While the base can potentially be an important platform for Chinese power projection in the Middle East, it is still difficult to understand the real purpose of the base in Djibouti. There has not been much activity from the base, outside of contingents leaving the base for training.

However, the base gives China the option to use military assets to respond to emergencies that require the rescue of Chinese nationals in the region, should they be kidnapped or need to be evacuated in a crisis. Dr Ghiselli assesses that the base would be pretty much useless in a conflict with another country in the Middle East, or with the US. While the base can be an important factor in shaping the future of China’s presence in the Middle East, the trajectory of its use is not yet clear in the longer term.

 
China’s Military Presence in Tajikistan

Mr Pantucci then gave his assessment of China’s security presence in Central Asia, focusing on their presence at a base in Tajikistan. The base is near the border between Tajikistan and China, but also near Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan adjoining the Wakhan Corridor, which is a portion of Afghanistan that extends and borders China, Tajikistan and Pakistan, particularly the latter’s Gilgit-Baltistan region.

China has always had a direct connection with Afghanistan through this border, which is short and as such, easy for the Chinese themselves to secure. The Chinese are also confident that Pakistan will be able to secure the Pakistan–Afghanistan border. China has a strong historical relationship with Pakistan and has a reliable partner in the Pakistani army, which can be expected to be cognisant of Chinese security concerns in protecting the border from threats which might pass through. The Chinese have also been providing equipment to Pakistan in the Gilgit-Baltistani region to strengthen their control of the border.

The Chinese are more concerned about whether Tajikistan would be able to protect its border with Afghanistan. Although Russia has historically helped Tajikistan to strengthen its border, China has preferred to guarantee its own security interests rather than rely on Tajikistan or Russia to do so. To obtain its own forward presence, China has established a People’s Armed Police (PAP) base in the Badakhshan region of Tajikistan to oversee the Tajikistan–Afghanistan border. The Chinese have also given money and equipment to Tajikistan to strengthen their capabilities on the border and have funded many border posts. China has also helped establish a base in the part of the Badakhshan region that lies in Afghanistan, where Chinese forces have conducted joint patrols with the Afghan army.

 
Chinese Security Interests in Central Asia

China’s security policy in Central Asia is primarily concerned with addressing potential militancy emanating from Afghanistan. Mr Pantucci described the PAP as an army that is fundamentally a domestic force, but with international capabilities focused around addressing counterterrorism issues and threats to national stability and security. The Chinese are less worried about threats arising from conventional armies or from the Taliban, which have historically shown little interest in expansionism northwards. Instead, China is worried about Afghanistan potentially serving as a host base for Uighur militants to gather, plot and launch attacks on China directly. The Chinese deployment in Tajikistan is primarily meant to establish a forward presence to help ensure the protection of this border.

In their discussions with Mr Pantucci, Chinese interlocutors have compared the Chinese deployment in Tajikistan to the maritime patrols sent by China’s Ministry of Public Security to the Mekong Delta since 2011 in response to the kidnapping and murder of Chinese sailors there that October. The incident led to a great deal of anger in China and a push to capture and punish the perpetrators. It also resulted in a desire by China to increase its presence in the Mekong region to forestall future incidents. To do so, China has conducted joint training exercises and patrols with countries in the region. These interlocutors see the Chinese presence in Tajikistan as a local version of what was done in the Mekong Delta and as an extension of domestic security concerns. From the Chinese perspective, the deployment is more about protecting China’s own borders and pushing its security footprint slightly beyond those borders to do so.

In Mr Pantucci’s assessment, the Chinese deployment in Tajikistan has not gone beyond establishing such a set of “eyes and ears” on the ground and providing the means to assist Tajikistan in addressing Chinese security interests.

 
Highlights from the Question and Answer Session

On the issue of a potential vacuum resulting from a reduced American interest in the Middle East and China’s potential role in filling it, Dr Ghiselli noted that the development is seen by China with both satisfaction and concern. While Chinese analysts have long seen what they call Western or American interventionism as one of the main sources of instability in the Middle East, there is a concern over how such a vacuum could be filled if it is created.

While China is willing to help coordinate regional efforts, it does not want to lead them, nor does it want to fill such a vacuum. With growing tensions between China and the US in Asia, there is even less appetite for Chinese adventures outside its immediate neighbourhood. With growing interventionism on the part of regional actors such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel, there is also concern in China that a reduced US presence could lead to more instability in the Middle East. China is also cognisant that Russia has neither the political will nor the resources to rebuild the Middle East. With economic problems at home and the risk involved in investing in places like Syria and Libya, China would prefer a more coordinated Middle East with less tension among regional powers and less outside intervention, but is unsure on how to bring this situation about.

Asked if China’s border fortifications could be for purposes other than domestic security, given its ongoing expansionist tactics, Mr Pantucci replied that he did not believe China’s deployment in Tajikistan is premised on an expansionist view towards taking over Central Asia. In his opinion, China is focused on being secure in its own territory and ensuring the rejuvenation of its strength and power rather than on expanding that territory. While he conceded that efforts by China to secure disputed borders or areas could look like expansionism, Mr Pantucci notes that China believes such territory is legitimately theirs and so has a different view of such efforts.

Asked about the role of China’s concerns about Uighur militancy and its actions in Afghanistan, Mr Pantucci noted a “neuralgic fixation” in China about Uighur militants around the world. China has for some time put pressure on Central Asian governments to repatriate Uighurs of concern and Afghanistan continues to be a place that China worries about in relation to this issue. Although there is evidence that some Uighur militants are present in Afghanistan, Mr Pantucci believed the threat is over-inflated as their numbers are very low and the plots or incidents that have been directed from Uighur militants in the country over the last 20 years can be counted “on one hand”. Instead, Chinese efforts to address their concerns in Afghanistan on their own instead of through cooperation with the Afghan government have caused massive tensions with the country.

On the issue of whether China is serious about outsourcing the protection of its foreign assets to private security companies and whether China is thinking about hiring local or foreign security companies, Dr Ghiselli noted that the debate in China on the use of private security companies has developed substantially in the past decade, especially in the aftermath of the evacuation of Chinese nationals in Libya.

While proposals were made in 2012 on reforming the private security industry in China and regulating the use of firearms by Chinese private security companies abroad, no action has been taken. With armed Chinese nationals potentially creating friction with local communities, it was decided that big Chinese state-owned companies could continue to hire the more expensive Western private security companies, since they are reliable, politically neutral and do not pose a diplomatic risk should their operators kill someone. Another option is to hire local people as armed guards, since there is less risk of creating friction with locals in doing so. Dr Ghiselli did not believe there is a clear preference for one option or the other, with companies deciding based on cost and their assessments of political and diplomatic risk.