China’s new security era in Africa: protecting assets, citizens in volatile nations

Living in container houses under the constant shadow of terrorism, Chinese diplomats in Somalia represent the extreme front line of a new, assertive era in Beijing’s foreign policy.

During a video call to staff at the Chinese embassy in Mogadishu, Foreign Minister Wang Yi laid bare the “complex and severe risks of terrorism”, using the situation in the war-torn nation as a stark reminder of why China was overhauling how it protected its citizens and interests overseas.

The call was made in January, soon after Wang skipped a visit to Somalia over security concerns.

Wang recalled how, less than a year after the embassy’s reopening in 2014, it suffered a terrorist attack, resulting in the deaths and injuries of embassy staff. The embassy had been closed since 1991 over the Somali civil war.

The volatile situation in Somalia, which descended into lawlessness following the ousting of the military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, is a reality now found in many African countries.

For decades, Beijing has relied on host countries to guarantee the safety of its citizens or used emergency evacuations, such as those seen in Libya and Sudan.

But now China might pivot from a reactive to a proactive approach in protecting its overseas citizens and assets, as outlined in its latest five-year plan (2026 to 2030), which aims to build a new “overseas security guarantee system”.

Analysts said the plan suggested China might move beyond emergency evacuations towards a permanent, layered security model, combining private security contractors and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) training of local forces.

According to its 15th five-year plan, China will “improve the mechanisms for safeguarding national security related to foreign affairs, establish an overseas security assurance system” and “strengthen the fight against sanctions, interference and long-arm jurisdiction”.

It will also deepen international law enforcement and security cooperation. This is part of the Global Security Initiative, Beijing’s framework for international cooperation on security issues.

Beijing has also pledged to “strengthen the protection of the legitimate overseas interests of Chinese citizens and legal persons, and establish a system for responding to claims as well as for protection and relief”.

Liselotte Odgaard, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said this would serve to stabilise essential logistical, energy and resource flows.

“The shift aligns with the 15th [five-year plan’s] general move towards strategic resilience and the securitisation of development,” she said, noting that the goal was to protect citizens and assets from elevated risks and international rivalry.

Observers said the shift signalled a move towards a “layered security model” for protecting overseas assets.

According to Dr Alessandro Arduino, an associate fellow in international security at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, this involved deploying private contractors to protect personnel and assets while the PLA trained local forces to secure the broader landscape.

Such a model would “quietly extend Beijing’s security footprint without large-scale military deployments”, he said.

Arduino added that Beijing was expected to expand the role of Chinese private security companies, which are increasingly tasked with protecting Chinese workers, infrastructure and logistics corridors tied to overseas investments.

He expects China’s military to deepen training programmes for local military and police forces. “Officially framed as counterterrorism cooperation, these initiatives also help local partners secure the roads, ports and industrial sites linked to Chinese projects,” Arduino said.

While Western-owned enterprises have shied away from conflict-ridden areas such as eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), a region rich in critical metals, Chinese firms have long shown high risk tolerance in conflict zones.

But recent crises have tested that approach.

In Sudan, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) was forced to terminate oil contracts last year after three decades, citing force majeure due to supply chain collapse and infrastructure attacks during civil war.

Similar challenges persist in Niger, where CNPC’s 2,000km (1,242-mile) Niger-Benin oil pipeline has faced repeated rebel attacks targeting the Nigerien junta’s revenue “oxygen”.

Beyond infrastructure, the human toll is mounting: across the Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger), DR Congo, Nigeria, Central African Republic and South Africa, Chinese citizens are increasingly being killed or kidnapped for ransom.

Odgaard, who is also a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said that this effort sought to “harden the country against external pressure”, emphasising resilience to US pressure, technological self-reliance and protection against geopolitical disruption.

“China sees sanctions, and particularly US extraterritorial sanctions, as tools of strategic coercion,” she added.

Odgaard said expanded security cooperation allowed Beijing to limit Western influence and “shape security norms in line with Chinese preferences”, while also helping to counter US extraterritorial laws that threatened Chinese entities abroad.

China’s response, she said, included negotiating bilateral law enforcement agreements and building networks to “reject or neutralise foreign legal claims”.

Through such cooperation with non-Western partners, Odgaard said, China aimed to create “parallel security ecosystems” – alternative frameworks for extradition, criminal investigations, cybersecurity, policing overseas Chinese communities and protecting infrastructure.

This complements the 15th five-year plan’s emphasis on securitisation of development and building a robust framework “to shield China from destabilising external forces”, according to Odgaard.

Dr Ilaria Carrozza, a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said it was not surprising that these developments had taken shape since 2011, when China conducted a massive operation to rescue over 35,000 citizens from Libya, marking a turning point in its overseas security approach.

Odgaard said Beijing’s push to protect citizens abroad stemmed from a mix of geopolitical and domestic pressures.

China’s vast economic footprint and rivalry with the United States exposed Chinese nationals to risks such as sanctions and asset seizures, she noted. Furthermore, rising domestic expectations meant that an assertive security posture was essential for bolstering the government’s legitimacy at home.

“It signals strength and competence,” Odgaard said.