Guarding the Interest Frontiers
The Chinese government’s changing understanding of the relationship between non-traditional security issues and foreign policy, that is, the same process behind the awareness of the necessity to protect the interest frontiers, has driven and shaped China’s military footprint in Africa and the Middle East since the 1990s. Hence, it is not surprising that the quantity, the type, and the ways that Chinese military assets have been deployed there started to change as Chinese policymakers became more convinced of the necessity to use military tools to support the efforts to protect the lives and assets of Chinese nationals and firms. A Chinese multidimensional security architecture has emerged in recent years with the newly opened base in Djibouti at its center. The presence of Chinese soldiers changed from being country- to subregion-focused and from single- to multipurpose-oriented. Yet, this chapter also shows how two key issues—the difficulties of acting through the United Nations and technical and legal uncertainties—have shaped this process.