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ABSTRACT
China is pressing ahead with ambitious plans to create a massive infrastructure network connecting it with many countries across the globe. Some of the ‘belt and road’ infrastructure will however, run through regions convulsed by chronic civil unrest, substantial criminality and incipient insurgencies and need protection by China’s private security companies. Simultaneously the Chinese state is undertaking a major ‘anti-secession and counter-terrorism’ campaign in Xinjiang using a variety of high-technology means: artificial intelligence, big data, wireless connectivity, autonomous systems and robotics. The demand and supply sides seem to be in sync, suggesting Chinese private security companies will soon use a suite of advanced information technology systems with a proven employment doctrine across much of Central Asia, South Asia and Africa. Such a future may be plausible but it is by no means certain as various factors may yet thwart China’s private security companies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Singer, Corporate Warriors.
2. Marten, “Russia’s use of semi-state security forces,” 198–99.
3. Robinson, “Southeast Asia gains new leverage.”
4. Zhou, “China’s Belt and Road Forum.”
5. Yang, “Securing China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” 2.
6. Legarda and Nouwens, “Guardians of the Belt and Road,” 7.
7. Ramachandran, “Protecting BRI: China’s Foreign Security Concerns.”
8. Arduino, “China’s Private Army,” 41.
9. Ghiselli, “Market Opportunities and Political Responsibilities,” 9.
10. Chan, “Why a private US military firm is of value to China’s belt and road mission.”
11. Legarda and Nouwens, “Guardians of the Belt and Road,” 14.
12. Reuters, “Security firms to cash in protecting China’s ‘New Silk Road’.”
13. Ghiselli, “Market Opportunities and Political Responsibilities,” 8–9.
14. Arduino, “China’s Private Army,” 47–48.
15. Basit, “Terrorizing the CPEC,” 708.
16. Arduino, “China’s Private Army,” 103.
17. Clover, “Chinese private security companies go global.”
18. Yang, “Securing China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” 9–10.
19. Arduino, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” 18.
20. See note 17 above.
21. Arduino, “China’s Private Army,” 42.
22. See note 11 above.
23. Arduino, “China’s Private Army,” 47.
24. See note 11 above.
25. Adams, “Blackwater Founder Erik Prince’s New Company Is Operating In Iraq.”
26. See note 10 above.
27. “China: Big Data Fuels Crackdown in Minority Region.”
28. Wang, “China’s Algorithms of Repression.”
29. Byler, “Ghost World,”; Wang, “China’s Algorithms of Repression,”; and Chen, China takes surveillance to new heights.
30. See note 28 above.
31. See note 28 above.
32. Post translated by Google Translate: 1.65 billion | PPP Construction Project of Ping’an City, Shache County, Xinjiang.
33. Boni, “Protecting the Belt and Road Initiative,” 5.
34. Ibid., 7–8. Sponsored, “Here’s How Punjab Police Integrated Command, Control and Communication Centre is Making Lahore Safer,”; PSCA, “Lahore to Get High Grade Surveillance Equipment Under Safe City Project,”; Huawei, “Huawei Announces Safe City Compact Solution to Protect Citizens in Small and Medium Cities.”
35. Boni, “Protecting the Belt and Road Initiative,” 9–11.
36. Chutel, “China is exporting facial recognition software to Africa.”
37. Byler, “Ghost World.”
38. Hawkins, “Beijing’s Big Brother Tech Needs African Faces.”
39. Pilling, “The fight to control Africa’s digital revolution.”
40. See note 36 above.
41. Arduino, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” 9.
42. See note 10 above.
43. Arduino, “Protecting Chinese oil.”
44. See note 10 above.
45. Aravindan and Geddie, “Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts.”
46. Yang, “Chinese AR start-up develops smart glasses to help police catch suspects”.
47. Layton, Algorithm Warfare, 37–38, 41–42.
48. This list draws on: Kania, Chinese Military Innovation in Artificial Intelligence, 10.
49. Thiercelin, “Beyond Personal Drones.”
50.. Bogdanov, “Smart Face Control.”
51. Rossiter, “Drone Drone Usage by Militant Groups,” 118.
52. Layton, “Commercial drones.”
53. Rossiter, “Bots on the Ground.”
54. Layton, “Robot Wars,” 14–15.
55. Joh, “Private Security Robots.”
56. Ghaffary, “Is this robot really going to replace a security guard?”
57. See note 10 above.
58. Gafarov, “Rise of China’s private armies,” 43.
59. Arduino, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” 10.
60. Arduino, “China’s Private Army,” 72–73.
61. See note 10 above.
62. Doyon, “‘Counter-Extremism’ in Xinjiang.”
63. See note 28 above.
64. Legarda and Hoffmann, “China as a conflict mediator.”
65. Keast, “Speaker Interview.”
66. See note 5 above.
67. Arduino, “China’s Private Army.”
68. Yang, “Securing China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” 9.
69. Krahmann, States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security, 66, 72–76.
70. Ghiselli, “Market Opportunities and Political Responsibilities,” 3.
71. Blackwater, 109.
72. Black, “What one company’s vanishing act tells us about the private security industry.”
73. Sean McFate on the US PSC industry quoted in Ibid.
74. Bruun, “Britain’s private military and security industry examined.”
75. Fielding-Smith et al., “A Security Company Cashed In on America’s Wars.”
76. Ibid.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Peter Layton
Peter Layton is a Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University. He has extensive aviation and defence experience and, for his work at the Pentagon on force structure matters, was awarded the US Secretary of Defense’s Exceptional Public Service Medal. He has a doctorate from the University of New South Wales on grand strategy and has taught on the topic at the Eisenhower College, US National Defense University. For his academic studies, he was awarded a Fellowship to the European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy. His research interests include grand strategy, national security policies particularly relating to middle powers, defence force structure concepts and the impacts of emerging technology. He contributes regularly to the public policy debate on defence and foreign affairs issues and is the author of the book Grand Strategy.