Abstract
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013, which is intended to promote economic development and exchanges between China and more than 60 countries, is gaining momentum. The BRI is not immune, however, to a number of important risks that in many instances are new to Chinese companies operating abroad. One oversight that must be addressed is that the BRI requires a wide range of security considerations along both the maritime and land routes. While the security problem has not gone unnoticed in Beijing, the solutions could be found elsewhere, namely in international companies that provide armed private security, special risk assessment, insurance and, perhaps most importantly, crisis mitigation.
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Notes
- 1.
The Silk Road Economic Belt, together with the twenty-first-century Maritime Silk Road , commonly known as the ‘One Belt and One Road’ (OBOR,—带—路, yidai yilu) initiative. The One Belt refers to the maritime dimension and the One Road refers to the overland historical Silk Road that connected China with the West via Central Asia.
- 2.
Zhongguo Xibu kaifa, http://www.chinawest.gov.cn/web/index.asp
- 3.
‘Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the New Stage of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Cooperation’, Kremlin Web Site, May 20, 2014, http://kremlin.ru/supplement/1642
- 4.
Author’s interview with international security consultants involved in the oil and gas companies’ protection. Beijing November 2014.
- 5.
Author’s interview with Chinese academicians specialized in security and international relations. Shanghai, June 2016.
- 6.
Aleksandr Bortnikov, director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on the increase of IS threat to Central Asia and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): ‘serious concerns over the escalation of tension in Afghanistan … under the banner of Islamic State…’ ‘FSB: Moving Part of the Taliban to DZ Resulted in Increased Threats to their Invasion of Central Asia,’ TASS, Oct 28, 2015, http://tass.ru/politika/2384331
- 7.
‘We urgently need to train counterterrorism specialists to improve our preventive and terror-fighting capabilities to cope with serious terrorist incidents,’ said Mei Jianming, director of the Counterterrorism Research Center at the university, which is the first in China to train such professionals.’ in Zhang Wei ‘Chinese public security university trains anti-terror specialists.’ China Daily, Mar 25, 2016, http://en.ce.cn/main/latest/201603/25/t20160325_9802767.shtml
- 8.
US Central Command reported in January 2015 that 54,700 private contractors worked for the Defense Department in its areas of responsibility. http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/PS/reports/CENTCOM%20Census%20Reports/5A_January2015.pdf
- 9.
‘K&R … a market worth about $250 m in 2006 doubled in size by 2011…’ from The Economist; Schumpeter Business and Management ‘Kidnap and Ransom Insurance . I’m a client … get me out of here.’ Jun. 27th (2013) http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/06/kidnap-and-ransom-insurance?fsrc=rss
- 10.
Author’s interviews with international PSCs operators in China. Beijing, Shanghai. June 2016.
- 11.
‘Huawei provides internal services, but in October 2010, opened an “Overseas Service Center” in Beijing. The company’s statement on the centre’s opening explicitly cites the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq , and the potential for a security vacuum to result, as key drivers of its decision to target the Iraq market .’ Erickson and Collins 2012.
- 12.
‘Critics may have questioned my company’s tactics, but to this day no one has ever doubted our results. In some fifty thousand completed personal security detail mission, we never suffered a single loss of life or serious injury to those in our care.’ Prince and Coburn 2013.
- 13.
Mao Zedong ‘Problems of War and Strategy’ Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Party November 6, (1938).
- 14.
Interview with Beijing PSC managers that operate in Iraq protecting Chinese oil companies infrastructures. February 2015.
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Arduino, A. (2018). Protecting the New Silk Road. In: China's Private Army. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7215-4_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7215-4_1
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