China’s Naval Policy Off The Coast Of Somalia International Participation, the Preservation of Strategic Interests, or Security?

Abstract

This work will try to analyse China’s naval policy off the Somali coast. The maincontribution this work will attempt to make is to offer evidence concerningwhether China’s anti-pirating policies in the Gulf of Aden are more for thebenefit of the international community, China’s own strategic interest (apolitical economy outlook), or diplomatic growth. This work may be importantas it could contribute to our understanding of China’s current foreign policy toa slightly better degree. This will be attempted in the first instance by analysingthe literature concerning China’s humanitarian policies in Africa to establish asense of the literature on this subject. In the second instance, we will examinethe official foreign policy stance provided to the international community bythe current administration in China. And finally, in the third instance, we willcomparatively analyse if the policy statement is logically compatible with theextant literature. The analytical structure used to do so is Charmaz’s (2006)grounded theory methodology. This study shows that China’s foreign navalpolicy off the coast of Somalia is probably a mix of humanitarian, economic,and international diplomatic goals.

Keywords

• China
• Humanitarian Aid
• Naval Policy
• Security
• Political Economy
• Somalia
• Pirates
• Diplomacy.