Introduction
In the last few weeks, the Horn of Africa and its Red Sea, especially the Bab el Mandeb choke point, have become a critical hotspot. Houthi rebel attacks are, indeed, putting global commercial traffic in danger, and many companies have decided to circumnavigate the African continent in order to avoid being attacked. While the global reaction hasn’t been long in coming, with the US announcing the formation of a 10-nation force to counter the attacks, China has seems quiet, even though its shipping companies - such as the China Ocean Shipping Company (better known as Cosco), Oocl and Evergreen Marine - have been forced to round the Cape of Good Hope, too.
But in order to protect Beijing overseas interests, Chinese private security companies have come into play and they have joined together to address this security emergency, by forming the Alliance of Security and Risk Management Companies, a non-profit organization, where a pivotal role is played by the Huaxin Zhongan Group, a major force in maritime security solutions, as Mr. Alessandro Arduino wrote in an article published by the South China Morning Post. Who are these security contractors and what role do they play in preserving Chinese interests in the African continent?
The party controls the gun
Following Premier Deng Xiaoping’s will to open up to the western world, the regulation of security companies started in the 1990s. According to laws passed, only former military personnel and police could receive the license to register private security companies, whose employees could not use and carry any weapon. The 2009 “Regulation on the Administration of Security and Guarding Services” slightly relaxed earlier limits, according to Mr. Alessandro Arduino, research fellow at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore, while still making it clear that Chinese PSCs are controlled by the state, through the Ministry of Public Security.
Consequently, the PSCs “that wish to provide armed security services inside China are effectively required to give up their private status, since they must either be a wholly state-owned company or have state-owned capital accounting for at least 51 percent of all their registered capital”, Mercator Institute for China Studies (MerICS) expert doctors Helena Legarda and Maia Nouwens explain. Actually, in Paul Nantulya’s opinion, the expression private security company itself is “misleading and inaccurate in the Chinese context”, even if the PSCs are operating outside the country, “As a party state, China requires all enterprises to obey party directives”, so, on closer inspection, private security companies should be considered as the government’s longa manus around the world. While most Chinese contractors offer passive security services because of the prohibition of bearing arms, indeed, an increasing number play more active roles, “such as collecting intelligence and conducting surveillance against potential threats”, doctor Paul Natulya explains.
Already in 2010, Beijing found a perfect match in order to provide PSCs a profitable business and guarantee Chinese firms operating abroad a valid system to guarantee workers’ safety. According to the Regulation on the Safety Management of Overseas Chinese - Funded Companies, Institutions and Personnel, Chinese firms must “provide security training to their employees before sending them abroad” and those operating “in high risk areas must also set up systems and mechanisms for security emergencies”. But the demand for a robust security presence in loco really took off as soon as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was launched, in 2013. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 85% of China’s BRI investments are in medium to high risk countries, mainly in the subsaharan Africa, where more than 200,000 Chinese workers moved in order to work on Xi Jinping’s faraonic project.
Nowadays, according to estimates, the number of Chinese PSCs operating abroad fluctuates between 20 and 40. By 2013, according to the Mercator Institute for China studies, they employed around 3,200 personnel. The true number of Chinese security contractors, however, could be way higher. The uncertainty of such important information can be easily explained by recognising the almost complete lack of regulation of this phenomenon in international law, which has only focused on the activities of private security firms in times of conflicts. Some voluntary initiatives, such as the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers (ICOCA, 2013), which also applies to non-combat situation, are not binding and China has not signed it, even though three Chinese PSCs have: China Security Technology Group Co, HumanXin ZhongAn and Sinoguards Marine Security.
Security contractors with Chinese characteristics
As mentioned above, Chinese private security companies started to expand significantly as soon as the piggybacked China’s Belt and Road Initiative, in 2013. At first, they looked at USA Academi - better known as Blackwater, a private military contractor founded in 1996 by the ex-marine Erike Prince - as a model and a partner to cooperate with. The establishment, indeed, of the Hong Kong - based Frontier Services Group, cofounded by Prince, and the deal signed to build a training base in Xinjiang, China’s western region unfortunately known because of the persecution of the Muslim ethnic Uighur minority, made it clear that the Blackwater-inspired model was seriously being taken in consideration. However, the progressive growth of tension between USA and China and the rise of international attention towards a number of questionable operations in numerous African countries led Prince to eventually decide to step back from his directive role. Currently, the security company is wholly owned by CITIC group, China’s largest state-owned conglomerate.
Secondly, another potential partnership was considered with Russian private military companies. According to dr. Mr. Arduino, three key advantages were offered: “experienced contractors with proven track record in battle, no apparent Western connections that could compromise the confidentiality of state-owned enterprises, and competitive pricing”. But Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death and the evident overlap of interests between China and the Moscow-backed Wagner group eventually led Chinese PSCs to act for themselves, even if they lack other international companies’ expertise and experience into handling crises.
How is this possible, if PSCs’ employees are mainly People’s Liberation Army (PLA) veterans? Unlike their western colleagues, Chinese security contractors are usually paid on a case by case basis, contrarily to the mainland’s law that requires these firms to guarantee their employees certain rights and benefits. Also, due to the lack of serious long-term career prospects, the industry has a high turnover rate, which makes it almost impossible to build both on-field education and expertise and condemns the sector to low quality.
Is it possible to imagine the limitation of PSCs’ influence in Africa?
Chinese PSCs’ numerous shadows, such as their uncontrolled proliferation, greatly affect the political stability of the “host countries” involved. First of all, their presence undermines the government’s role as the primary security provider and heightens the risk of human rights violations, Nantulya observes. In the African continent, Chinese PSCs have diversified their areas of interest, ranging from Ethiopia, where Beijing DeWe Security Service is protecting a natural gas project, to South Africa. And the request for greater transparency of how and to which extent foreign security firms operate in the continent has mainly come from civil society actors.
Nevertheless, even though this spreading awareness among the population must be appreciated and encouraged and there are strong continental norms in many parts of Africa against foreign basing, as evidenced by a 2016 African Union (AU) resolution “warning members to be “circumspect” when entering into agreements that could lead to more foreign bases” the perspective of a clearer and better regulated private security sector seems far from being realized. In the Chinese case, as the PSCs are a governmental tool, it is difficult to catch them in the meshes of more restrictive laws promoted by the African governments, whose interest towards a strong partnership with Beijing wouldn’t make it convenient to question a precious instrument for China to rely on, as proven by recent events.