China-Africa Cooperation on Peace and Security Issues

In recent years, with increasingly frequent economic and trade cooperation between China and African countries, China has become the most important international trade partner and an important source of foreign investment for Africa. Therefore, there is room for both sides to further expand and deepen their economic and trade cooperation. The peace and security situation in Africa has always been a mixed story. On the one hand, it shoes a generally positive trend with regional conflicts, wars and other traditional security hot problems declining. On the other hand, new types of security challenges continuously emerge, and non-traditional security problems become the most serious ones. This complex security situation results from both internal and external factors, including tribalism, resource curse, long-term economic underdevelopment, severe food shortage, incapable national governance, intervention by external forces, globalization, and the amplification effect of technological advancements. Both security governance within African countries and external forces' intervention in regional peace and security affairs are manifestly characterized by militarization. Due to the military intervention by external forces, countries in the region have become more dependent on external intervention and cannot improve their own capacity of security governance, thus creating a vicious circle of conflicts-external intervention-withdrawal of external forces-recurrence of conflicts. This regional security situation exerts an obvious influence on international economic and trade cooperation. Protection of overseas interests requires the joint efforts of the Chinese government, enterprises and all sectors of the society to take corresponding measures. On the basis of previous endeavors, the Chinese government should continue strengthening cooperation with African countries in peace and security affairs. The cooperation should keep in pace with the evolution of global economic and political security patterns, meet the demand for the upgrading of China-Africa relations, conform to the altered nature of regional peace and security, and accord with the shift of concept and method of China's participation in international affairs.