As part of the project “China’s Adaptation to Conflict Risks in the Age of the Belt and Road Initiative,” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), Pascal Abb has edited a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary China.
This special issue examines how China protects its considerable economic interests in high-risk regions. Traditionally, Chinese foreign policy has been based on the principle of ‘non-interference’, particularly in relation to internal conflicts, and clearly places the responsibility for protecting its overseas investments with the respective host countries. In recent years, however, China has increasingly relied on its own initiatives, such as capacity building in the area of internal security, mediation, or the deployment of private security firms.
The four articles in this special issue examine various dimensions of this adaptation of China’s foreign and security policy. Two of them emerged directly from the DFG project at PRIF: In the introductory article “Managing Exposure: China’s Foreign Policy Adaptation to Overseas Conflict Risks”, Pascal Abb examines how the issue of conflict risks is debated in China, what security measures the Chinese government has taken in response, and how these shape the country’s role as a global security actor. In the article „Embeddedness Under Fire: How Chinese Private Firms Navigate Conflict Risks in Northern Myanmar“, Yaolong Xian shows how Chinese private companies are dealing with the escalating civil war in Myanmar and explains how their strategies differ from the approach taken by the Chinese central government. Both articles are freely available via open access.
In addition, two contributions by outstanding Chinese researchers were accepted for the special issue: In the article “A Risk-Averse Principal-Agent Framework: Private Security Companies in China’s Overseas Interest Protection“, Chuchu Zhang, Yinuo Liu, and Yixiong Huang examine the global role of China’s security firms. The issue also includes the article “The Virtue of Bias? China’s Stakeholder Mediation in the Iran and North Korea Nuclear Crises“ by Xiaoyu Lu and Youqi Yu on China’s diplomatic mediation efforts.