Power projection

Officially, China abides by a strict hands-off policy when it comes to the internal affairs of other countries. And to be fair, Chinese intervention in Africa is nowhere near the scale practiced by the United States, France and some African countries.

But Beijing hasn’t followed this practice consistently. China is also becoming more assertive on the continent. It has to.

“With the growing numbers of Chinese living in Africa, they become more and more subject to negative incidents, just like Westerners,” Shinn says. “[China is] finding that they have to be somewhat more innovative in the way that they protect their own interests and nationals on the continent.”

Beijing has relied on local governments to handle security for Chinese nationals in Africa. But this approach has met its limits, Shinn explains.

When civil war broke out in Libya four years ago, Beijing had to evacuate 36,000 Chinese nationals living in the country. The long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi wasn’t willing or able to do it. And China certainly didn’t want to ask Western powers to help rescue its citizens.

“China had to do the entire evacuation on its own without any assistance whatsoever,” recalls Shinn. “That was a wake-up call for the Chinese.”

“They didn’t even know that they had 36,000 nationals in the country,” he adds. “They did very well actually pulling it all of, but they realized that they were hopelessly unprepared for this sort of thing.”

Then there’s considerable economic interests. A prime example is the young nation of South Sudan. China procures about five percent of its oil imports from the east African country.

In 2013, South Sudan collapsed into civil war. China soon embarked on its first major military intervention in Africa—deploying 700 soldiers as part of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

While China had far more peacekeepers deployed to Africa than any other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the South Sudan mission is the first that explicitly includes Chinese combat troops.

The soldiers were part of an unprecedented level of Chinese engagement. Beijing’s diplomats also took on the role of direct mediators between the warring parties.

On Jan. 12, the South Sudanese government and the rebels signed a Chinese-brokered cease fire. “China’s mediation of South Sudan issues is completely the responsibility and duty of a responsible power, and not because of China’s own interests,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

Which is incredulous. Africa has many conflicts, but China has major economic stakes in South Sudan—and the civil war is the only one Beijing introduced combat troops.

But this isn’t to say that China’s interests and those of South Sudan are mutually exclusive. In this case, China helped bring the warring sides to an agreement that, at least for the time being, slowed the conflict.