Why Chinese kidnappings have become rampant

More than 50 Chinese workers were seized in two separate incidents in Sudan and Egypt in the past four days, forcing the Chinese government to consider the human cost of its drive for greater global presence and influence.

Twenty-four cement workers kidnapped by Bedouin tribesmen in Sinai, Egypt, were freed on Tuesday night, but the fate of 29 road builders captured by rebels in the troubled region of South Kordofan in Sudan remains unknown.

“Chinese companies go to these dangerous countries without evaluating regional instability and volatile situations,” says Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Now we are meeting trouble. This is a big lesson.”

The number of Chinese workers abroad has skyrocketed in recent years, as Beijing seeks natural resources to fuel its economic growth and state owned companies win more contracts to build roads and railways, dig mines and set up telecom networks in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Chinese companies employed 812,000 Chinese workers abroad at the end of 2011, according to Commerce Ministry figures. This week’s kidnappings were only the most recent in a string of such incidents. A list compiled by the business magazine Caixin recalled 13 hostage-taking attacks involving over 100 Chinese citizens in 10 countries over the past five years. 14 of the victims died.

Targets of the kidnappers include Colombia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Nigeria. The Chinese do not seem to have been targeted because of their nationality, but rather because their status as foreigners makes them more valuable as pawns in local conflicts.

“China needs more resources and that drives companies to resource-rich countries that tend also to be dangerous countries,” says Professor Shen.

Chinese firms often bring their own labourers to do work that western companies would hire local employees to do, under expatriate supervision. That means Chinese companies set up camps where large numbers of Chinese workers live in close quarters, making them tempting targets for criminal gangs and guerrillas.

The nature of such projects, often spread over large and remote areas “makes insurgent attacks more likely because less protection is available,” says Barry Sautman, an expert on Chinese activities in Africa at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.