appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Dulue Mbachu

As China’s relationship with African countries has deepened, the country’s influence is spreading into more areas. In the latest of a series of articles, Dulue Mbachu investigates the extent of Chinese investments in the continent and Beijing’s growing wariness about their security.
Chinese regulators balked at Zijin Mining’s planned US$4 billion acquisition of Canadian company Allied Gold, placing it on hold to scrutinise the potential risks.
As a result, the agreement for the deal, already approved by Canadian and West African regulators, was extended to July 29, according to the Toronto-registered company.
Allied Gold’s most important mining assets are in Africa, with the biggest being the Sadiola mine in Mali, a country which is under increasing attacks from jihadist insurgents.
The company’s other assets, in Ethiopia and Ivory Coast, are relatively safer but nevertheless are located in regions that are broadly prone to conflict and other political risks.
China’s decision to suspend the acquisition of Allied Gold signals a growing wariness in Beijing about the rising risks and security costs of its overseas investments, according to observers.

Threats to investments in Mali have become worse since the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) – the al-Qaeda affiliate active on the fringes of the Sahara Desert – allied with ethnic Tuareg rebels and began waging an “economic jihad” on the country.
In the past two years, the main targets have been international mining and construction companies in western Mali where Allied Gold operates, with Chinese companies already getting a fair share of the attacks.
Since May 2025, 11 Chinese citizens have been abducted by armed groups and companies, including China Overseas Engineering Group, have come under attack. In April, Mali’s defence minister was killed when JNIM and the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front carried out coordinated attacks on the capital Bamako.
“JNIM’s goal is to asphyxiate the economic interests of the military junta in Bamako by disrupting its main sources of foreign exchange,” said Romane Dideberg, a security researcher at the UK-based Chatham House specialising in West Africa.
“In a way, China’s decision to suspend the acquisition of Allied Gold shows JNIM’s strategy is working,” she said.
China’s expansion across Africa under the Belt and Road Initiative has come with a significant expense on security to protect projects and investments in conflict zones across the continent.
The signal from the Chinese regulatory stance on the proposed Allied Gold takeover is that it may be reaching its limit on risk tolerance.
Investments worth an estimated US$700 billion – covering mining, infrastructure and construction, among others – currently exist across Africa, according to Lorenzo Suadoni, a researcher at Peking University in China.
In a November 2025 report for the London-based Atlas Institute for International Affairs, Suadoni said these assets were protected by a network of private security companies operating across 14 African countries, filled with Chinese military veterans.


The former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel are officially prohibited from carrying weapons, according to Suadoni’s report.
At least 32 Chinese private security companies maintain 112 branches outside China, of which 28 branches are in Africa, according to a study by Li Yumo, published in the June 1 edition of the Chinese Journal of African Studies.
They include Zhongchen Special Security, DeWe Security, Shandong Huawei Security Group and the Huaxin Zhongan Group, with operations in countries as varied as Senegal, Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya and Angola.
Li traces the rise and expansion of China’s private security companies to 2003, when the China Security and Protection Group set up security escort services for the Bank of China’s Phnom Penh branch in Cambodia.
Since then, these companies have expanded globally, becoming “an indispensable force” in protecting China’s overseas investments by helping to manage asset risks and other emergencies, according to the study.
“Political instability, frequent terrorist activities and escalating local armed conflicts in some countries have highlighted the increasing security risks faced by Chinese overseas investment projects, placing higher demands on overseas risk management,” Li said.
The growing demand for the services of private security companies faces legal challenges due to “both the imperfections of the domestic legal system and insufficient understanding of host country regulations”, he noted in the study.
While Chinese law provides for the domestic operations of private security companies, there are no provisions for international activities.


In his report, Suadoni makes a distinction among the three security models represented by Western private military contractors such as Blackwater, Russia’s Africa Corps – both of which engage in direct combat – and the Chinese variant.
China’s approach falls somewhere in the middle, with “partially state-controlled entities serving party-directed objectives through passive security, while maintaining low profiles and avoiding direct combat”, he said.
With conflicts in Africa evolving and new security risks emerging, some analysts see China facing the temptation to get more directly involved in protective combat operations.
The consensus is that China is unlikely to abandon its policy of non-interference and may instead choose to increase military support for the more challenged regimes in places like Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
“By militarily supporting the recipient states China avoids possible allegations of interventionism,” Suadoni said in an email to the South China Morning Post.
“All in all, China has to protect its assets overseas, but if this endeavour requires more effort than the benefits received, it could lead Beijing to rethink its economic relations with the most endangered states.”


Digital Silk Road: Hong Kong acts as financial bridge between China and MENA

China bets on early port and power deals in Sudan to secure post-war economic edge

Chinese men warned over bridal scams as ‘marriage squeeze’ drives wife search in Africa

How China’s green tech is undercutting Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ oil strategy in Africa

China-Africa relations

Is China’s risk tolerance reaching its limit with pause of African mine deal?

The Sadiola mine in Mali is Canadian company Allied Gold’s biggest mining asset in Africa. Photo: Wikipedia

Chinese company Zijin Mining Group’s agreement to buy Canadian company Allied Gold has been extended to July 29. Photo: Shutterstock

Chinese medical team arrives in DR Congo to help fight Ebola, ‘filling US void’

Medical staff in protective gear tend to the body of an Ebola victim at a hospital in Bunia, Ituri province, in the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 3. Photo: EPA

Members of a Chinese medical expert team arrive in Kinshasa on June 2. Photo: Xinhua

How China is turning historic African slave port into waterfront tourism destination

The “Gate of No Return” memorial arch on Ouidah beach, Benin. The historic port once saw nearly 2 million enslaved Africans marched along the 2km “Slave Route” from the auction plaza to the beach during the transatlantic slave trade. Photo: Shutterstock

Chinese state-owned firms are building the new La Marina waterfront complex at what used to be Benin’s main slave port. Photo: Handout

As France tries to reset relations with Africa, China’s influence looms large

French President Emmanuel Macron and Kenyan leader William Ruto at the closing session of the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

President Emmanuel Macron announced €23 billion of investment during the summit. Photo: AFP

News

China

Diplomacy

China and Africa’s evolving partnership

More and more Africans want to learn Chinese. But who will teach them?

A contestant delivers a speech in the final of the 25th Chinese Bridge Chinese Proficiency Competition for university students in Soa, Cameroon, on May 29. Photo: Xinhua

How Benin is on the road to reshaping its cotton industry, with China’s help

Benin’s new Cotton Road will link the north and south of the country and is expected to cut travel times by up to 75 per cent. Photo: Handout

Workers collect cotton in Soclogbo, Benin. The country is Africa’s top cotton producer. Photo: AFP

Benin wants to increase local processing of cotton rather than exporting much of it raw. Photo: AFP

Can China’s strict policing model ‘silence the guns’ in Africa?

Liu Bin, China’s assistant foreign minister, speaks at the opening ceremony of the China-UN-Africa training programme at the People's Public Security University in Beijing on June 16. Photo: Handout

Africa’s Great Lakes region has been destabilised by the illicit proliferation of small arms fuelling conflict. Photo: AFP

Coffee, chillies and cashews: a new recipe to spice up China-Africa trade relations

In Africa, some agricultural products, including coffee beans, that meet baseline requirements on pest risks, processing and safety are eligible for export to China, eliminating the need for country-by-country trade deals. Photo: Shutterstock

As well as a trade item, dried chillies are seen as a cultural bridge between Africa and China. Photo: Corbis via Getty Images

Regulators ‘sending a signal’ with scrutiny of potential acquisition that includes important mining assets in conflict-prone regions


Regulators ‘sending a signal’ with scrutiny of potential acquisition that includes important mining assets in conflict-prone regions.


Is China’s risk tolerance reaching its limit with pause of African mine deal?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Regulators ‘sending a signal’ with scrutiny of potential acquisition that includes important mining assets in conflict-prone regions

Regulators ‘sending a signal’ with scrutiny of potential acquisition that includes important mining assets in conflict-prone regions