China’s African Peacekeeping Decision-making in the Hu Jintao Era

By Fanie Herman

China’s role in international peacekeeping has greatly expanded during the leadership of Hu Jintao, and China has since become a significant contributor to peacekeeping operations (PKOs) in Africa. The importance of the book is expressed in the view that peacekeeping intervention is a tool that strengthens or fulfills policy goals in the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), and the UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). China has considerable interests at stake in Africa, in terms of promoting economic cooperation or gaining access to natural resources. In order to maintain these efforts, it is imperative that a secure and stable environment is created, not only to maintain diplomatic relations with its African partners, but also to express the harmonious worldview and peaceful development concepts, which rose to prominence under the presidency of Hu Jintao. The purpose of this book is therefore to examine the extent to which peacekeeping intervention contributes to China’s relations with these countries. Two models are employed to shed light on this thesis. The rational actor model (RAM) developed by Graham Allison is used in the first instance to explain the goals for each country, the options considered to reach the goals, the consequences or outcomes of choice that will ensure whether a particular option is chosen, and then selecting the option that has the consequences that rank the highest in the leadership’s payoff function. However, the leadership in policy formulation does not always act in a unitary fashion and often needs the input of governmental actors to produce results in decision making. Therefore, the bureaucratic politics model (BPM) of Allison is used in the second instance to indicate the bargaining, influencing and compromising positions of the bureaucracy that has reinforced the rational decisions of the leadership. The main findings are that peacekeeping interventions serve as a mechanism to facilitate cooperation, is significant to China’s goals in the mission countries, and influence and shape bargaining that occur between bureaucratic actors regarding peacekeeping.

• Language: English
• Publisher: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9789384464905

Fanie Herman

Fanie Herman holds a PhD in international politics and is interested in China's diplomatic relations with Africa. He published articles in international journals on the strategic, security and economic dimensions of this relationship. Some of his noted articles are China's oil diplomacy with Sub-Saharan Africa, China and South Africa: a case study on two level-games, the role of the Chinese media in African peacekeeping operations, China and power politics in Africa, and Sino-South African diplomacy. Currently he is a part-time lecturer in International Affairs at a University in Taiwan.

Book preview

Chapter 1: China’s African Peacekeeping Diplomacy: Rational Actor versus Bureaucratic Interests

China’s role in international peacekeeping has greatly expanded since the beginning of the twenty-first century, and these efforts presently rank among one of the main contributions to peacekeeping operations (PKOs) in conflict areas worldwide. Published sources suggest that China’s involvement in PKOs is part of its peaceful rise and development strategy, promoting its international status, becoming a responsible world player, and protecting its interests abroad.¹ One aspect of China’s peacekeeping diplomacy that has not been fully examined is the approach the central leadership follows in making decisions, and the influence of bureaucrats in producing results.

Occurrences in foreign affairs are perceived as actions taken by the nation or a national government.² Governments select actions that will maximize strategic goals and objectives, while decision-making assumes that there must be actors involved who contribute to the choices or alternatives paths of action that represent choosing among available alternatives in which there is a certain amount of uncertainty.³ In the case of China in particular, there are traditional actors involved in military decision-making, which include the top political leadership and its chief foreign policy bureaucracies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). However, there is also the added factor of bargaining among individual members of the government who form or otherwise influence outcomes of policy making through the interactions of competing preferences, compromises, diverse interests and unequal influences.⁴

While distinguishing between the choices of the centralized government and bureaucratic actors in policy formulation, the assumptions are that the Chinese government is a unified actor, and has a coherent utility function while acting in relation to external opportunities and willingness from the environment, and then making a cost-benefit analysis of the situation and before ultimately formulating decisions based on value-maximization.⁵ Hence, policy officials or units are not empowered with making authoritative choices while being presented with a neat set of alternatives in the decision-making model from which elements may be selected after carefully weighing the consequences of each possible action according to a fixed utility scale.⁶ Policy alternatives are seldom provided in foreign policy since the environment is less familiar than national politics. Alternatives must often be formulated in an uncertain manner in the context of a situation in which a total is considered in the face of disagreements that will arise over which estimate of the situation is most valid, as well as in which there are alternatives, while also determining what consequences are likely to result from various choices, and the values that should serve as criteria for ranking the various alternatives from the most to the least preferable.⁷

There is an assumption that actors operating in an external environment act according to fixed preferences that are impossible to observe directly, whereas the constraints from the environment are more observable, which provide a powerful analytical premise. In view of this premise, the Chinese leadership has a coherent utility function and acts according to one set of preferences. When the national interest is better served in promoting a favorable image of China among the leaders and populations of host countries, this interest is followed rather than, for example, shifting the peacekeeping focus to protecting civilians. In addition, the leadership reacts to external stimuli from the peacekeeping environment that enables them to define objectives and implement behavior accordingly, which are defined in terms of opportunities and willingness.

A particular choice is a function of opportunity, the possibilities and constraints that decision-makers face. When presented with opportunity, a decision-maker’s willingness to choose a course of action reflects their goals and motivations (the menu analogy).⁸ China’s actions intimate that the interest is to see how the peacekeeping environment affects the images of the world that Chinese leaders possess. Willingness involves factors that affect how decision-makers see the world, process information about what they see, formulate preferences, and ultimately make choices accordingly. Since behavior is a result of both opportunity and willingness, they are necessarily complementary conditions.⁹ In the sphere of peacekeeping, the success of a PKO requires sending troops into an environment, as well as being willing to pay political, economic and military costs if the maintenance of a PKO contingent is insufficient to reach stated goals. Thus, opportunity and willingness are important elements to clarify the relationship between the decision-maker and the operating environment, and is brought together as a series of choices that could be made.¹⁰

There are a number of opportunities that China as a contributor to PKOs could consider, including active participation to increase its status as a responsible stakeholder, committing troops to specific areas to gain operational experience and military prestige, changing the perceptions of the local populations towards China’s PKOs, strengthening military relationships, and to use peacekeeping as a tool to advance economic cooperation with regional actors. This list of options also affects the probability of China’s choice as a result of the costs of sending troops, the number of troops involved, the image that the troops want to portray, and the leadership and host country’s resolve to keep the peace. This is helpful for understanding that the opportunities presented to actors are constrained in various ways, and that these constraints affect the willingness of the leadership to act.¹¹

In contrast to the rational actor model (RAM), there is not any unitary actor in the view of the bureaucratic politics model (BPM). Rather, there are many actors as players who do not focus on a single strategic issue, but on many diverse intra-national problems. These are players who act in terms of there not being any consistent set of strategic objectives, since their actions follow various conceptions of national interest, organizational, and personal goals. Players who make government decisions do not make single rational choices, since they are governed by giving and taking within the state’s political machinery.¹² In a speech made by Wu Bangguo, chairman and Party Secretary of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, in 2009 he said: Although China’s state organs have different responsibilities, they all adhere to the line, principles and policies of the party.¹³ Ultimately all entities in China that are involved in or strive to influence the formulation of Chinese foreign policy, CPC organs, government agencies and PLA departments, universities, research organizations, state-owned enterprises, media organizations and citizens, are subordinate to the CPC .¹⁴

The question remains whether the bureaucracy has its own perceptions and stands on peacekeeping issues, or whether it acts in unity with the decisions made by the leadership.¹⁵ For example, a quick assessment of Chinese companies involved in mining exploration in Liberia reveals that they benefit from the presence of peacekeeping troops as they provide visible security in the vicinity of mining operations.¹⁶ Although these actors operate outside the boundaries of traditional policy formulation, the goals and interests of these companies, represent the interests and constituencies of the Chinese government because they act as capacity builders of the Chinese state. They impose their own rules and regulations, but they are not monolithic when the scope of China’s African engagement is taken into consideration.

Like many other Chinese companies doing business in postwar and stable societies, they do business in a central and competitive environment in which their success is partly measured by the view that Africans have with regard to peacekeeping troops. Taking advantage of the situation and gaining a favorable view from the local populations is indeed a strong element in assessing success or failure from the viewpoint of Chinese peacekeeping troops. It remains to be seen whether these companies as subjects of the Chinese state contribute to China’s overall objectives, and if there is positive contact between peacekeeping troops, and the local populations and companies operating in the environment.

A criticism against these observations is that there is no connection between peacekeeping and the actions taken by the Chinese government to strengthen economic and security cooperation.¹⁷ Peacekeeping is only to be undertaken because China is an active member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and fulfills its duties under the principles and practices of the mission mandates to uphold the peace. It thus has a moral obligation to be faithful and act as a good messenger of the peace under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), and must not have any ambitions to act in a self-interested manner.¹⁸

The debate between the MFA and the PLA on peacekeeping exposes deeper internal divisions that China must resolve as it continues on its path towards becoming a global power: this involves the debate between China’s increasing international responsibility as a rising power and its traditional principles of state sovereignty and non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs.¹⁹ The MFA and PLA have often been at odds in defining China’s proper international role. Whereas the MFA places a high level of importance on improving China’s image on the world stage, the PLA has been less interested in whether the rest of the world sees China as being a responsible stakeholder. The divergence between the agendas of military and diplomatic actors is common in most countries, as is the difficulty foreign ministries encounter in asserting their positions with generally more powerful defense institutions that are skeptical about multilateralism.²⁰ But considering China’s low-profile diplomatic policy and the impact of the China threat theory in recent years, China has to handle the issue of multilateralism delicately.²¹

There may be a significant lack of coordination between the preferences of individual actors and the central leadership, the PLA, Ministry of Public Security, and the MFA, which all act as agents of the state and promote the interests of the Communist Party of China (CCP). However, many of these official actors have diverse perceptions of China’s interests and even rival motives as a result of their varying domestic portfolios and international outreach activities.²² Diplomats, representatives, and businesspeople do what they think is best for their departments or corporations, and not always what is best for the CCP. They can be said to act in accordance with personal capacities and follow directions based on a belief system molded by changes in the international environment. The example of how the Chinese Special Envoy for African Affairs Liu Guijin, urged northern and southern Sudan to adhere to the peace option, commit themselves to calm conditions, exercise self-restraint, and adopt the principle of a dialogue to resolve outstanding issues demonstrates this international outreach activity.²³

Due to the large amount of investments Chinese companies make in African infrastructure building and economic development, officials from the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), State-Owned Enterprises (SOE’s), the China Export and Import bank also played a role in advancing the interests of their organizations. Peacekeeping intervention possibly influenced the decisions of these players to take certain courses of action. MOFCOM is an influential player by virtue of its close to ties to the business community and the Export-Import Bank and the China Development Bank are respectively tasked with expanding Chinese trade, and promoting Chinese economic and infrastructure development.²⁴ It is assumed that peacekeeping intervention facilitated the objectives of these organizations. Peacekeepers could act as agents to reconcile the goals discussed in the RAM with the ambitions of the individuals who worked in these institutions.

In order to gain access to natural resources, strengthen diplomatic relations and build a relationship of trust and confidence with host countries, peacekeeping is viewed as a pragmatic tool to engage these countries on the issues mentioned above. Bureaucrats have competing preferences on organizational goals and the best way to achieve these goals is to consider national goals of lesser importance and prioritizing organizational interests. However, they could not obtain a favorable perception among business sectors if there was not a unified engagement strategy in place. In sending out positive signals about their intentions and cooperative efforts, it was necessary that they had to compromise to avoid confusion and conflict between themselves and from officials of the host countries.

Understanding the impacts these concepts may have on choices and alternatives may necessitate providing an overview of China’s stance to PKOs. This general survey of facts and data thereby provides explanatory value. It further serves the purpose of surveying the historical evolution of China’s PKOs, or as analysts observe, the past potentially shedding light on the future, and determining the potential motivations for China becoming involved in PKOs.²⁵ Defining China’s principles and practice in the UN entails examining the types of peacekeeping China engages in, and how the principles of (a) a host country’s consent, (b) the use of force only in self-defense, and (c) impartiality constitute the basis of China’s traditional view on PKOs.²⁶

This book examines China’s PKO in light of this position, but notes that the traditional view on PKOs is being challenged due to the characteristics of specific mission areas, UN reform with respect to PKOs, and changing views of the Chinese leadership on peacekeeping diplomacy. Specific PKOs warrant specific actions, and the direction is toward early peacebuilding activities. Whether China will maintain old traditional style of peacekeeping intervention or change its views is a matter of what style is best suited for what kind of intervention. If China has a strong view on protecting state sovereignty and non-intervention, what is the justification for sending troops on peacekeeping missions?

A partial answer for this is China’s shifting focus to the domestic political scene in the countries where troops are stationed.²⁷ It is simply not possible to strictly adhere to the principles of consent of all the parties, impartiality and the minimum use of force in every situation. PKOs are therefore evaluated in terms of a cost-benefit analysis to indicate how the interests of China can better be served. A subtle shift in China’s position regarding state sovereignty may be discerned, as emphasized by He Wenping of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.²⁸ The evolutions of the four official guidelines on legitimate intervention are to be considered. These state that intervening bodies must first proceed with respect for the concerned state’s sovereignty. Second, they must gain the authorization of the UN. Third, they must secure an invitation from the concerned state. Finally, they should use force only when all other options have proven ineffective. This set of necessary conditions demonstrates that China has softened its hard line stance on state sovereignty and non-interference.²⁹

Although the leadership follows the principle of non-use of force in PKOs and peacekeeping is not viewed in terms of displaying military power in an excessive manner, the number of missions China is involved in and its troop contributions resemble a need by the Chinese government to modernize its military in light of growing interests and foreign policy objectives. This is also in tandem with increasing power projection and international stature.³⁰ Therefore, it is reasonable to expect the PLA leadership to participate in UNPKOs to meet these new growing security challenges.

A two day PLA peacekeeping work conference, hosted by the Ministry of Defense (MOD) in Beijing in 2009, confirmed the commitment by the political leadership to make assessments of new situations and characteristics confronted by the peacekeeping work of the PLA.³¹ New ideas and new measures are necessary to strengthen and improve the peacekeeping work of the PLA in a scientific manner.³² Contributions by the Chinese government to PKOs and the role of the PLA as the agency involved in recruiting and training the troops for overseas missions is a reflection of promoting international peace and engaging in relief efforts, which therefore has won extensive recognition from the international community.³³

How far should China go in expending resources abroad to promote a culture of peaceful co-existence and harmony, and to what end? Will its dispatching of peacekeeping troops to conflict areas in Africa bring about stability, and what measures will China take to protect human rights in post-conflict societies? Does this concern economic self-interest, safeguarding the security environment, or presenting alternatives to direct intervention? Should China take the lead in safeguarding peace on the African continent, or should it do so in concert with other countries? How do the principles of self-determination, human rights, and national sovereignty conflict and interaction stand in relation to its peacekeeping diplomacy, and are Africans in accord with Chinese peacekeeping policies? Although these questions do not pertain to the central tenets of the present research purposes, they support the discussion that follows in subsequent sections and contribute to the purpose of clarifying some of the dilemmas that relate to China’s participation in PKOs.

The RAM demonstrates that China participates in UNPKOs for certain reasons and follows a desire to obtain specific objectives. Taking different options into account can increase benefits and decrease costs and move the leadership to opt for a choice that pertains to its interests and goals. However, the leadership’s decision also depends on the aggregate preferences, perceptions and stands of other actors, to make a decision that can maximize the utility functions of PKOs.

Purpose

Taking the opportunities versus willingness analogy into account, the purpose of this book is to apply the four analytical concepts of the RAM to China’s participation in the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), the UN Stabilization Mission in the Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), the UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), and the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS). The concepts are: (1) goals and objectives, (2) alternatives, (3) consequences, and (4) choice.³⁴ These categories formalize the concept of rational action that underpins China’s value maximizing choice within the constraints presented by the peacekeeping environment. Explaining the influences of these analytical elements, and how they are put into practice, justify the goal of contributing to conditions of peace and stability in troubled hotspots of the world.

The BPM is characterized by bargaining, compromise and conflict resolution between diplomats, military officers, special representatives and role-players from China’s financial institutions that have a stake in African economic development and the providing of humanitarian assistance. These players are all important to this book as their different positions and the results they wanted to achieve (promoting individual or organizational interests above state interests) shaped the decision on peacekeeping intervention. Even though bureaucrats from these departments focused on what is beneficial for their domains, for example the MFA’s propensity to receive and distribute humanitarian assistance to Sudan, the PLA’s preference to gain operational experience and project military power in the DRC, the special representative’s affection to increase his personal reputation at home and abroad and projecting a positive image of China, and officials from financial institution’s inclination to advance commercial interests, in reality, they are subordinate to the decision-making of the leadership and have little or no power to implement policies in an independent manner. However, this does not mean that it is a necessary condition for bureaucrats to deliver political results that supports the government’s decision. The small streams of decision-making can indirectly impact the decisions taken in the external environment, with regards to a specific issue and is situation-specific. These small piecemeal decisions bear upon an issue on a given date and time and have an effect for the players involved in that immediate situation. Bureaucrats in these departments often engage in intense rivalry to pursue their own goals and act in a manner that is regarded as self-interested.

With this in mind, the book aims to shed light on the presumed competition that takes place between bureaucrats to advance their own interests. Government officials have certain positions, preferences, perceptions and stakes in an issue and have to bargain to reach a compromise. Issues don’t have clear-cut results and to reach consensus it is necessary to find common points of interests regarding the issue. While it is true that bureaucrats compete to maximize individual or organizational results, it is also true that they bargain and compromise to reach understanding on issues of common interests. This book argues that peacekeeping is such an issue, because of the benefits a secure and stable environment holds for their respective domains.

Scope

This is a book that focuses on China’s decision-making with regard to PKOs in Liberia, the DR Congo, and Sudan-Darfur. These three countries are selected because China has considerable peacekeeping presence and they provide a range to analyze the RAM and BPM. It is neither a comprehensive survey of China’s diplomatic relations with these countries, nor an attempt to cover all aspects of decision-making. This is because decision-making in terms of structures, processes, mechanisms and procedures varies greatly in different fields and on different levels.³⁵ Therefore, in order to avoid undue expectations, the reader should note the following points:

1.    The RAM and BPM are used as the only two analytical models of investigation in this book since they shed light on the explanatory value of this process.

2.    Significant attention is devoted to China as unified, rational actor that acts in response to opportunities and willingness in the peacekeeping environment and defines action as a rational choice. The four components of the RAM elucidate this analysis.

3.    The BPM examines the decision-making process in terms of political resultants from government officials at China’s mission at the UN, the special representative for African affairs, the ambassadors employed at the mission countries, and military officers from the PLA. The bureaucratic machinery accounts for a great deal of resultants to the actions and decisions of the government, and are therefore an essential element in decision-making. Without these perceptions, views and stands of Chinese ambassadors, diplomats and other spokespersons on the peacekeeping issue, the actions and decisions of the leadership are based on incomplete information, dependent on overly-stated assumptions and missing important evidence.

4.    The time frame of this book is further confined to the Hu Jintao era, because the African policy formulated under his administration has provided for a more strategic, constructive approach that has promoted peace and security under China’s independent foreign policy of pursuing peace. In addition, many of the African PKOs in the last decade were still unresolved when Hu became president, which prompted the Chinese leadership to send peacekeeping troops to these countries for reasons discussed in subsequent chapters.

Organization

Chapter 1 introduces the key research areas. The focus is on a broad description of decision-making that is useful to China in making decisions, the menu analogy which prompts the Chinese government to act according to the opportunities and willingness available in the peacekeeping environment, highlighting the importance of a peaceful and stable region to further goals, defining peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peacemaking as the three levels of China’s participation in PKOs, providing an extensive account of the literature and weaknesses, addressing the research questions, laying out the research design and methods, how the methods is going to be applied, and finally, the scope of the study.

Chapter 2 introduces the RAM and the BPM. The RAM explains the rational actions by the government to make decisions, resting on assumptions, organizing concepts, dominant inference patterns, and evidence. These components are taken into account when considering the goals and objectives, alternatives, consequences and choices of the leadership in peacekeeping decision-making. The BPM focuses on the positions of bureaucrats, competing preferences and bargaining that produces results in decision-making.

Chapter 3 examines China’s position and reasons for participating in PKOs. The evolution of China’s African PKOs is then discussed, followed by African PKOs under the presidency of Hu Jintao. Lastly, China’s position towards Sovereignty and Intervention in Liberia, the DRC and Sudan- Darfur is elucidated with a reference to the value the RAM and BPM have in these countries.

Chapter 4 identifies the key agencies involved in the peacekeeping policy formulation process. Significant in this chapter is the debate between the MFA and PLA on their respective positions toward the