With U.S.-South Africa ties in the deep freeze, it was notable to see the sheer size of the U.S. delegation sent to this week’s Mining Indaba in Cape Town – one of the most prominent industry gatherings and one of the few where the Global South gets a prominent voice.
The Trump administration’s famous Afrophobia seems (momentarily at least) tempered by its greed for minerals. It is reportedly walking ...
Category: Global Security Initiative
The New Dilemma for Middle Powers Caught Between the U.S. and China
In this episode of the China Global South Podcast, Eric & Cobus unpack a major question facing middle powers everywhere: What happens when the global security architecture you relied on for decades no longer exists? Fresh from ...
China Presses Its Global Security Vision in Africa With High-Level AU Briefing
The Chinese government is ramping up promotion of its Global Security Initiative to key stakeholders in Africa. Last week, the Foreign Ministry organized a briefing seminar on the GSI at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa for senior-level AU and UN officials.
China’s Global Initiatives: More Questions, Fewer Answers
By Lukas Fiala With the Xiangshan Forum, Beijing’s premier security summit, having taken place in September, I’ve been wondering about the state of the Global Security Initiative (GSI). It is common knowledge that it’s rather difficult to understand the implementation of ...
China’s Gradual but Growing Security Influence in Africa
China is steadily expanding its security presence in Africa through deeper military ties, weapons sales, and multinational deployments as UN Peacekeepers. In fact, China is now the largest arms supplier to Sub-Saharan Africa, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace ...
China’s Africa Security Strategy: Training, Arms, and Political Influence
Over the past 25 years, China’s military engagement with Africa has grown dramatically. In 2000, fewer than 5% of African weapons came from China. Today, Chinese-made armored vehicles are used by 70% of African militaries, and China has become the continent’s ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
China’s National Security Whitepaper: Old Wine in New and Important Bottles
By Lukas Fiala As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, China’s recently published national security whitepaper rightly deserves our attention at a crucial moment in global politics. Instructive both in terms of timing and implications, the paper cements Beijing’s ...
Police Chief Says China to Train 3,000 More Overseas Cops
By Isabel Kua China will train thousands of law enforcement officers from different countries over the next 12 months, its police chief said Monday, as it seeks to cement its role as a global security provider.
Insecurity in Pakistan: Losses and Gains for China
By Saniya Kulkarni Security in the Central-South Asian region is an issue of increasing importance to China, especially in light of growing uncertainty in Pakistan and an ongoing threat to infrastructure projects in Afghanistan. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K, or ...
China, Russia, and the New Era of “Systemic Competition”
By Lukas Fiala Earlier this week we had the opportunity to host the German Marshall Fund’s Andrew Small for a discussion about his latest book The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future. As the title suggests, Andrew ...
What is Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative? New Government Document Gives Clues
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the Global Security Initiative in 2022, but since then, the initiative has raised more questions than answers. Now, a new concept paper has been put out by the Chinese government, which adds detail on both the GSI's broad principles and some concrete ...
Can Beijing Sell its Global Security Initiative?
By Lukas Fiala On Wednesday, Xi Jinping promised Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif ‘to advance the operationalization of the…Global Security Initiative.’ Announced by Xi only in April this year, the GSI is adding to an alphabet soup of existing policy acronyms such as the ...