The expansion of Chinese outbound investments, aimed to sustain the increased need for natural resources, has amplified the magnitude of a possible international crisis that the People’s Republic of China may face in the near future. At the same time, China’s economic diplomacy and non-intervention policy is gradually shifting towards a more assertive posture on international affairs. Consequently, the threats to China’s enterprises and Chinese workers based on foreign soil are poised to increase. During the race to acquire hydrocarbons and other natural resources, China has heavily invested in several unstable areas. Additionally, the kidnapping of 29 Chinese by Sudanese...

This policy brief attempts to address the impact of Chinese private security companies in protecting Chinese outbound investments and citizens by analysing:

How the PSC service market has been influenced by growing Chinese economic power and the role of State Owned Enterprises in securing natural resources abroad.

How the international community should engage China in a common definition of roles and boundaries in the privatisation of the use of force.

The significance of this policy issue will be relevant not only to the security arena but also to a broader area including peace building for countries that benefit from abundant...

Since the Blackwater’s⁹ Nisour square incident,¹⁰ the media once more portrayed the role of private security corporations (PSC) and private military companies (PMC) to the general public as “guns for hire”. The contemporary mercenaries’ negative perception is still linked to the despicable actions committed by private soldiers during the African post-colonial wars. Also, the negative public perception of the PSC is the result of almost two centuries of affirmation of the post Westphalia national armies, where the soldier-citizen has been gradually replacing the “lance for hire”.

Since the end of the Cold War, the PSC’s scope and size has been...

Since the establishment of the Westphalia order and the birth of modern national armies, the role given to the “free lances” or the “condottieri” has been increasingly assuming a negative connotation. “Terrorism is not the only facet of contemporary conflict that is not new. Non-state actors, many of them in the business of war for personal profit, were features of medieval and early modern warfare: indeed the effort by seventeen-century European states to establish a monopoly on the use of armed force was in part a direct response to the suffering and destitution, the rape and pillage, wrought by competing...

Without taking in to account the overseas Chinese communities, more than a million Chinese workers are employed all around the globe and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in charge of the mapping of migrant workers distribution. A daunting task itself without taking in to account that large numbers operate in unpredictable zones such as: Afghan Mes Aynak copper mine by China Metallurgical Group, China National Petroleum Corporations South Sudan’s oil wells, Ethiopia ITC network by Huawei-ZTE and Minmetal Nord Korea mining areas near the Chinese border.

The rising numbers of Chinese PSC private actors on the scene well...

In the near future Private Security Companies with “Chinese characteristics” are going to be a subject of increasing academic interest not only in the field directly related to the monopoly of violence but in many more intertwined areas, ranging from international law to defence economics and peace building. The augmented role that is going to be played by the Chinese PSCs in the security arena is going to affect not only the security actors but also the security stage as a whole. The outcome is greater than the singular consequences just added together. Nevertheless the new PSC breed is going...