Security on the Belt and Road
Chinese Experts weigh in on how to make the BRI safer in the wake of Karachi terrorist attack
It’s been three weeks since a deadly terrorist attack in the Pakistani city of Karachi killed three Chinese teachers and injured one.
The attack has sent shockwaves through the Chinese community in Pakistan, despite efforts by the Pakistani government to capture the culprits behind the attack.
Although it is true that the teachers are not in Pakistan as part of the BRI, their fate does reflect the security landscape faced by Chinese workers, businessmen, and other Chinese nationals in regions encompassed by the BRI.
As the BRI is set to hit its 10-year mark next September, Beijing Channel has invited four experts to assess the security risks faced by Chinese personnel and projects in BRI countries, and actions they believe China could take to mitigate the risks.
Experts interviewed by this newsletter include
Wang Yiwei (王义桅) Professor, Renmin University
Xue Li (薛力) Fellow, CASS
Wang Duanyong (汪段泳) Associate Fellow, Shanghai International Studies University
Chen Naike (陈乃科), NPC Representative and President of Guohe Holdings
Here are their respective interviews.
Disclaimer: the content of the newsletter reflects only the personal opinions of the interviewees, not necessarily that of this newsletter, Xinhua, or the Chinese government.
1. Wang Yiwei
What risks are facing the “Belt and Road”? They can be divided into the following three categories. First, the preexisting risks in the region before the BRI. These are inherent risks not incurred by the BRI, but the BRI must face such risks. It can be said that these risks are the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and hegemonism.
The second category is the risks incurred by the unprecedented shifts unseen in a century, such as COVID-19, border conflicts caused by climate change and water disputes, as well as ethnic and religious issues.
The third category is the reactions to the BRI by developed countries. The BRI as a new variable has exacerbated existing conflicts, especially the current confrontation by the United States.
Of course, without troubles stirred up by these western countries, we also run into obstacles by bringing domestic practices to foreign countries. Duality is a reality in many countries. For example, parts of Africa have a relatively underdeveloped economy, but its ideology, superstructure, political system, language, and legal system are all influenced by the West. When China brings its domestic practices to foreign countries, it will have to adapt to the environment. Some projects would even become a scapegoat for domestic political struggles. This type of risk is not rare.
Another type of risk is caused by our poor communication with local NGOs, such as in the Myitsone Hydropower Dam Project in Myanmar some years ago. In China, there are few NGOs that correspond with those in Western or developing countries in a real sense. Although Cambodia is underdeveloped, it has more than 5,000 western-style NGOs. There are also many NGOs in countries where color revolutions occurred. In comparison, the Chinese presence there is nearly all official institutions, such as large SOEs. This reality prompted the West to accuse of China posing an institutional threat to the countries in question, and persuade the host countries to lean on the West.
Now to examine how to deal with each type of these risks.
For the risks that are the legacy of colonialism and imperialism. The BRI serves to solve these risks, such as the debt problems. But new problems may arise when solving old ones. Although on the surface there is a temporary trend of risk expansion, in the long run, it is beneficial to solve debt risks and security governance risks.
The second category is those risks associated with the unprecedented shifts unseen in a century. During his visit to Renmin University, Xi Jinping emphasized that what we are facing now is a society filled with risks. In the past, globalization brought dividends. What we need to do is just to follow the trend. But now, globalization has reversed, and populism is on the rise. This is a global phenomenon. What should we do? Developed countries, especially the United States, are reluctant to provide public goods, and even create more trouble.
The third category is that new risks may arise with the advancement of BRI. The United States is now claiming connectivity in Central Asia will bring about risks. Some countries now prioritize security over growth. That’s why in addition to the Global Development Initiative (GDI), we have also proposed Global Security Initiative (GSI), which shows that we would like to address these issues in a coordinated manner.
For China’s assessment of risks, in earlier years, we may have been underestimating the risks, but not we may have become over-cautious. Some are reluctant to invest in unstable regions. This is a big problem because it is inappropriate to exaggerate the risks in the world. In addition, the risk assessment is tied to our mechanism, for example, the Belt and Road Construction Leadership Group has not been designed to cover the topic of security.
I have also said before that our officials, education, and culture are detached from a Westernized world. We need to fully integrate with the locals. In this aspect, we are not doing as good a job as our predecessors in the 1960s and 1970s. I have been to many countries, such as Nigeria, and discovered that Chinese companies circled themselves out of the local society. We need to localized, not only to tie our interests with the locals but share risks with them.
Therefore, in the building of awareness, mechanisms, and competence, we should comprehensively improve our ability of consular protection, information gathering and early warning, and globalization. We need more risk assessment companies, early warning companies, and governance institutions, which we still lack.
As for what the government, the academia, and the market should do to mitigate the risks, first, the government should advocate a correct view of risks, assume its responsibilities, and avoid exaggerating the risks of the world. Second, academia should conduct forward-looking research. Third, the market should carry out early warnings and promote law-based, internationalized, and localized development. Independent think tanks and enterprises can carry out industry-university-research cooperation. The BRI still lacks a mature mechanism that can research and respond to risks, and share successful experiences among different market entities.
In terms of academic research, as Xi has stressed, it is necessary to create an independent knowledge system. In the past, when people spoke about opening our eyes to see the world, it was usually referred to as the Western world, but now we have to look at the whole world with open eyes, including the West and the East, the global North and the South. Our knowledge system is not enough, so we are making efforts on this front, such as conducting detailed studies of the 149 countries that have taken part in the BRI, of international organizations, agencies of the United Nations, etc. We can’t base our understanding of the world on the broad-stroke studies the West and the Soviet Union conducted. Now university students rely on the internet to write papers, and people rely on Baidu or travel blogs when they travel abroad, but this is not enough.
2. Xue Li
I am now focusing on cultural and civilizational issues, and I think that security risks for China along the Belt and Road are largely related to the competition and friction between civilizations.
The BRI itself hopes to seek common ground while reserving differences. Through economic cooperation, we can promote a kind of economic and cultural relations between each other, and even some political relations.
But in the process of implementation, different people will have different perceptions, and some people will feel that your approach will affect their customs and habits, and it will be more acute when it comes to religion.
I want to emphasize that the risk of cultural differences may be on the rise. What China is doing today is a deviation from its traditional practices. For thousands of years, China has proudly been a nation of manners, but would rarely go to other countries to export China’s customs. Now, with globalization, perhaps China has started to change this practice and started to go directly to other people's homes to promote economic and cultural cooperation in a win-win way, and China is not particularly experienced in this. It’s more difficult to cooperate with a different civilization or society, which may cause a lot of misunderstanding, friction, and even hostility.
In addition to economic risks, cultural risks may become more and more prominent. As China's international status increases, and as Chinese self-confidence rises, there will be more tendency to advance Chinese standards, which may invite pushback. Furthermore, there are also some bad habits of the Chinese themselves, some of which have to do with culture or are related to personal qualities.
The military risk is relatively small because the BRI focuses on the economic and cultural aspects. At the same time, we are now beginning to focus on ecological protection. In fact, China does not emphasize political and military expansion, unlike the historical expansion of European countries. They have preached and colonized, but China has no such intention.
So we are now also thinking about how to defuse or prevent the risks. Politically, there are official diplomacy and citizen diplomacy. That is, we hope to maintain friendly relations with both the governing and the opposition in the host country, so as to defuse a kind of risk brought about by the government change. Since many of the BRI projects are infrastructure projects, government support is very important.
And then with regard to non-traditional security, I think there is still a lot that China can do. One method of protection many Chinese companies are using right now is group housing, with buses to ferry them to and from work. In the long run, it is necessary to localize, to have better interaction with the local people through civil society or through some projects of companies, so that the local people can understand that the Chinese are not there to preach, to occupy land, but only bring benefits for the locals.
One thing that the government could do at this point is to increase support for private enterprises. There are many large projects along the BRI contracted to SOEs, but for the BRI to be more sustainable, private companies need to play a bigger role.
Secondly, more should be done to solve some specific problems of enterprises, such as reducing their foreign exchange rate risk, and how to allow their local investment in the formation of sunken capital to be used as collateral to obtain loans, according to my research this is a particular concern for some companies.
Another is to maintain the relative stability of policies.
About the academic community, I think that scholars can conduct more on the ground research in BRI countries to support policymaking or offer consultation for businesses.
For the business community, I’m not worried too much, because the Chinese are doing business everywhere. For example, amidst all the chaos in Mogadishu, there’s a Chinese vendor selling underwear in a supermarket there, and runs a booming business.
3. Wang Duanyong
Security risks for Chinese companies and citizens in the BRI are traditionally heavily concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and have seen several more waves of sharp increases since the epidemic. At the same time, there are also rising trends in Southeast Asia and South Asia.
The reasons for this can be briefly summarized as follows.
First, the epidemic has caused the already weak economic situation in these fragile countries to further decline, with a sharp increase in unemployment, leading to a deterioration in law and order, especially a surge in property-related crimes, such as theft, robbery, kidnapping, and extortion, etc.
Second, hate attacks caused by the epidemic. This is particularly evident in sub-Saharan Africa, which is heavily influenced by Western media. For example, the brutal murder of three Chinese nationals in Zambia in May 2020 was essentially a typical malicious criminal case involving money, but the backdrop was that local politicians took advantage of the epidemic to incite hatred against China, which emboldened the criminals, and more sadly, the local people were generally gloating after the incident, which further triggered the “Broken Window Effect ”. At the same time, it should be noted that hate attacks do not only occur in underdeveloped countries. For example, in the United States, the number of unprovoked attacks on Asians due to "epidemic hatred" has increased exponentially, which is closely related to the direction of public opinion, politicians' manipulation, and the effectiveness of the fight against the epidemic. In general, hate attacks are significantly correlated with the level of civilization in the local society, the strength of law enforcement, and public sentiment.
Third, the wave of xenophobia triggered by economic and political crises. A bad economic situation usually triggers a serious political crisis, which further leads to social disorder. In a crisis, many issues can be politicized. Topics such as import/export balance, foreign investment control, and natural resource development, which are already prone to trigger economic nationalism, are more likely to breed conspiracy theories and become weapons of partisan struggle. Most of the Belt and Road countries have China as their largest trading partner, a major source of foreign investment, and major engineering contractor, and thus bear the brunt of domestic political struggles in some countries, making local Chinese enterprises and Chinese people victims of social conflicts instigated by some politicians.
Fourth, external involvement. It is increasingly clear in recent years that signs of external major powers meddling can be found in the internal political conflicts and social unrest of many failed governance states. Even in many countries, especially in the Belt and Road countries, the goal of external forces' interference is to directly target the existence of Chinese interests. The specific motive is diverse and multiple, such as geopolitics, commercial competition, seizure of strategic resources, and even cross-border water resources disputes. Their common methods include direct means such as manipulating legislation to create legal obstacles and bribing politicians to directly intervene administratively; indirect means such as using media, opinion leaders, academic institutions, etc. to inflame public opinion and launch protests through NGOs, communities, and other types of social institutions; and even worse, using state terrorism methods such as directly funding terrorists to achieve targeted attacks.
In terms of future trends, the above-mentioned risk factors will remain in place for the upcoming period as the development of the epidemic and the direction of the economy remain uncertain. Most of the Belt and Road countries, especially those in Central Asia and Africa, are likely to be slower to emerge from their predicament, and thus unsettling situations such as policing issues, terrorist attacks and social unrest will continue. Therefore, the security risk for Chinese nationals in these countries in the near future is not optimistic. And with the deeper involvement of some major powers, the security situation in certain countries and regions is likely to become more complicated and continue to deteriorate, potentially reaching deadly levels.
The awareness of risks among different entities in BRI countries varies greatly. Generally speaking, official institutions such as our embassies and consulates abroad have a strong awareness of risk, and usually maintain close communication with the host countries, obtain and release risk information in a timely manner, and actively implement early warning and aftercare programs; state-owned enterprises, especially large SOEs, basically implement a "security veto system", stressing the safety of personnel as their primary responsibility, ensure investment in security measures, and strictly perform in safety management. However, for a large number of Chinese private enterprises and individual households living in the local community, although they generally have a basic awareness of risks, they are limited by their ability, financial resources, and needs, and have problems in setting up and implementing security measures, which make these people also the most vulnerable among overseas Chinese.
Overseas risk prevention is a systemic project that requires synergistic linkage among all parties. Looking at the current situation of security threats against Chinese in Belt and Road countries and the trend in a future period, while urging host countries to actively fulfill their primary responsibility to protect foreign nationals, it is also necessary to explore a new model of self-protection among local Chinese communities. In terms of implementation, there are already successful experiences of Chinese security joint defense in some countries, such as Angola.
As a demand, overseas security products can likewise be met by the market. As international rules require, the protection of overseas citizens must first exhaust local remedies. Therefore, there is limited room for the home country's government to act. In this case, a more effective and reasonable solution is to provide security services through private security companies.
To this end, the Chinese government can, on the one hand, consider urging the host countries to strengthen security protection for Chinese enterprises and citizens; on the other hand, it can also adjust domestic legislation to facilitate the investment by Chinese capital in security companies operating overseas.
Overseas security risks need to be supported by precise information, especially community-level research to rigorously assess security risks; modern security relies heavily on early warning, which requires modern technology tools such as big data and social media monitoring; overseas-oriented security risk assessment and early warning obviously also need local language tools. These are all directions that the Chinese academia can work on.
4. Chen Naike
I think the risks include national image being distorted in many countries, our overseas interests being damaged, the security risk of corporate investment, and the personal safety risk.
The causes of these risks are as follows.
First, China’s political influence on the host countries lags behind the pace of its capital and social entities. However, what the above countries have in common are their internal instability and external marginality.
One example of their internal vulnerability is that, in 2018, the new government of Maldives announced it would withdraw from the free trade agreement with China and re-evaluate cooperation projects with China. As an example of external marginality, Sri Lanka withdrew the permanent use of 20 hectares of land previously given to China and replaced it with a 99-year lease. The main factor is the intervention of the Indian government.
Among the countries mentioned above, except for a few countries such as Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia, Serbia, Hungary, etc., all other countries do not have a solid political basis for friendship with China at the national level. Since China’s political influence did not catch up with the pace of its capital and enterprises, it is very easy for these countries to bend to the will of the Western countries on the issue of “choosing sides” and damage China’s overseas interests.
Second, China’s cultural diplomacy and overseas publicity have not reached the general public and lack in-depth exploration. For example, people-to-people exchange along the BRI should have been an important way to promote the interaction between China and small countries. However, it mostly focused on the “upper level” or the elites, instead of reaching out to the “grassroots”.
Although in some countries there are foreign branch offices and correspondents of Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily, CGTN, etc., many local people still prefer to trust Western media and so-called third-party independent media. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Instagram, also hold great sway on local public opinion. For example, half of Myanmar’s 53 million people use Facebook. The influence of anti-China content on these media in infringing China’s overseas interests cannot be ignored.
Third, a multi-layered interest protection system is still in need of improvement. At the national level, there is a shortage of supply of consular protection. Each consular officer on average serves over 200,000 overseas citizens each year, 40 times that of the United States, making it difficult for consular protection to be in-depth and detailed. Furthermore, consular protection often serving as the sole source of protection is also insufficient in face of demand. Although China has made many efforts in international security cooperation in the fields of military, police, and anti-terrorism, due to ideological differences and insufficient mutual trust in strategic security, making the security of overseas interests an obstacle, it is difficult for China to deeply and effectively integrate into the international security cooperation mechanism.
At the market level, since market-oriented overseas security forces had a late start, they are not yet capable of complementing consular protection. It is difficult to provide targeted, continuous and personalized services to specific regions, enterprises, and personnel, such as local security risk research and assessment, emergency rescue and medical services, etc.
At the enterprise level, many overseas Chinese enterprises and personnel do not have a strong sense of “self-reliance” in terms of security risk prevention. The Myanmar incident exposed many Chinese enterprises’ deficiencies in emergency organization, response, liaison, rescue, and communication support. They over-trusted the local government’s promises of protection, but when the promise was not being fulfilled, they were left in a helpless situation.
To mitigate the risks, I believe that first, we should demonstrate China's political influence on the basis of equal diplomacy. On the one hand, in our dealings with BRI countries, we should not only emphasize equal dealings and resolutely oppose great-power chauvinism, but also make it clear to other countries China's interests in their countries and the consequences of violating them. China should also draw up measures to safeguard its overseas interests, such as establishing a sound legal system for the security of China's overseas interests. For example, we should establish and improve the legal system for the security of China's overseas interests, enact laws and regulations such as the "Law on the Protection of Security of Overseas Interests" and "Regulations on the Security of Overseas Interests" to extend China's political, military, diplomatic and public opinion influence on overseas investing countries. On the other hand, we should take initiatives, especially those involving important strategic lifelines, such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline, the China-Laos-Cambodia Railway, etc.
Secondly, we attach importance to cultural diplomacy to establish China's image. China could enhance its connection with BRI countries on a human level.
Third, enrich the channels of overseas rights and interests protection. China could create policy incentives to foster market security forces. Relatively speaking, private security services are efficient, politically low profile, and strong in compliance. It is recommended to continuously promote the cooperation between the insurance industry and overseas security industry, using the former's capital to promote the latter's development. China's enterprises, institutions, and citizens abroad need to become more adaptive and increase their ability to avert risks, both by strengthening security forces, but also by deepening understanding of the host country's social culture, institutional norms and relevant laws and regulations, respect for local values and customs, and establish a good corporate image.
Disclaimer: the content of the newsletter reflects only the personal opinions of the interviewees, not necessarily that of this newsletter, Xinhua, or the Chinese government.
Lu Jia’nan and Sun Mengqi, two interns for Beijing Channel, have helped with the translation.