Demystifying China’s Involvement in African Peace and Security Architecture

Abstract

Until the last decade, Peace and Security (PAS) issues were among the least discussed topic in the budding China–Africa relations. However, China’s recent involvement in African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) has attracted critical review. Critics aver that China’s expanding security engagement in Africa is a clear manifestation of China’s willingness to use its growing military to challenge the global status quo. This paper reviews China’s involvement in APSA to ascertain whether the realities of China’s PAS engagement in Africa support the ‘China Threat’ narrative (zhōngguó wēixié lùn). The paper establishes that, albeit the considerable flexibility in China’s foreign security policies, many of its aspects are still guided by the policy constraints of sovereignty, non-interference, and non-aggression. By upholding these policy constraints, China’s involvement in APSA has occurred on a constructive interactive basis and principally within the multilateral frameworks and mandate of regional and international bodies. However, the novelty is that China has taken an endogenous viewpoint in its security engagement with Africa that is hinged on the idea that Africa’s problems must be confronted with African solutions and capabilities. This is manifested in the increasing level of functional security exchanges and capacity-building activities to enhance African countries’ security capabilities to confront common security challenges independently.