Northeast Asia Projects

China’s African Strategy and Its Implications for U.S. Interests
J. Peter Pham

Introduction

With the foreign policy focus of United States policymakers and media trained primarily on events in the Greater Middle East, especially those directly connected to America’s ‘‘global war on terror,’’ short shift tends to be made of Africa, the continent getting even less attention than it usually receives despite its growing strategic significance. 1 Consequently, the increasing economic and political engagement of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) across the continent has gone largely unnoticed. Yet apart from the Central Eurasian region on its own northwestern frontier, 2 perhaps no other foreign region rivals Africa as the object of sustained Chinese strategic inter-est in recent years, culminating in the publica-tion earlier this year, in coincidence with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing’s tour to six African countries, of the first official govern-ment paper elaborating the PRC’s policy toward Africa. 3

Those analysts who have followed these developments have largely ascribed them to China’s need to secure access to energy resources. 4 Although demand for oil is certainly an important factor driving the PRC’s relations with some African states, it would be remarkably shortsighted to view all of China’s interests on the continent through this singular optic. Before assessing the implications of China’s growing presence in Africa on the interests of the United States in the region, it is necessary first to understand the contours of Sino–African relations as well as the complex dynamics driving the parties to forge the ties being developed.

Historical Background

Although the fact is hardly known in the West, China’s contacts with and interest in Africa date back almost two millennia. The acclaimed British historian of Africa, Basil Davidson, avers that Chinese goods were reaching the continent ‘‘by the sea routes as early as the beginning of the Christian era’’ and mentions the discovery in Meroe, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kush (situated largely in present-day Sudan), of bronze pots of ‘‘undoubtedly Chinese shape.’’ 5 Chinese porcelain and stoneware as well as coinage dating to the Tang dynasty (618–907) have been found at archaeological excavations in Egypt, Kenya, and Zanzibar. 6 The most important period of Sino–African relations in historical times came during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) when the voyages of the famed eunuch Admiral Zheng He (1371–1433) took the mariner on at least three occasions as far as the Horn of Africa and the coast of East Africa where he obtained and took back with him exotic animals, including a giraffe, to the delight of the Yongle Emperor (1403-1424). 7 Although the Ming officials who sailed with Zheng had as their man-date the enforced acknowledgment by those they encountered of the suzerainty of the

Dragon Throne, modern China’s involvement in Africa began with a distinctly anti-imperialist tone with Mao Zedong’s ambition that the PRC should strive for the leadership of the third world. The basis of the PRC’s foreign policy is found in the ‘‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’’ (mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual nonaggression, noninterference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence) that were enshrined by China in joint declarations with India and Burma issued one day apart in June 1954. 8

In April 1955, representatives of 29 African and Asian countries—including the PRC’s Zhou Enlai, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, Indonesia’s Sukarno, and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh—met in the Indonesian city of Bandung in the first Asian–African Conference. The final communique´ of the summit, which has been seen as the PRC’s ‘‘first major diplomatic victory, ’’ 9 adopted the ‘‘Five Principles’’ as the foundation for relations among the emergent nations of the developing world—the emphasis on sovereignty and noninterference finding particular resonance with leaders whose legitimacy was largely founded on their successful resistance to both historical Western colonialism as well as new Soviet pressures. The conference participants also called for economic and cultural cooperation among their largely newly independent countries as well as a program of active support for the self-determination of dependent people against colonial regimes. 10

Following the Bandung Conference, the PRC developed relationships with both independent African states—Nasser’s Egypt being the first African country to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1956—and aspiring liberation movements like the Algerian FLN, whose provisional government received Beijing’s recognition in 1958. Premier Zhou Enlai visited Africa three times in the 1960s, and the decade constituted the high point of China’s material assistance to both governments and revolutionary groups (nearly every liberation movement received arms, funds, and training from the PRC at one point or another) on the continent. Additional impetus was given to the policy of engagement by the growing Sino–Soviet split in which Africa, already a theater of cold-war competition between the Soviet Union and the West, became the setting for the ideologically driven conflict between the two communist powers. The Sino–Soviet split even spilled over into anticolonial struggles, in some cases like Rhodesia where Beijing backed Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), while Moscow supported Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). In 1967 the Gambian poet Lenrie Peters succinctly summarized the rivalry between the two communist superpowers in verse.

Despite its enormous cost, by the mid-1960s, the PRC’s well-orchestrated foray had begun to pay dividends on all fronts as 17 of the then 38 independent African states recognized Beijing (compared with 14 that continued relations with Taipei) and Moscow was growing increasingly defensive that in some African countries ‘‘pictures of Soviet-bloc leaders had been displaced or overshadowed by huge portraits of Mao.’’ 12 The momentum, however, was lost with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and the recall of experienced envoys, many of whom, if they did not meet worse fates, ended up being paraded about in dunce caps by the Red Guards. This left Sino–African relations in the hands of frightened subalterns whose principal preoccupation was not statecraft but survival. A particularly amusing anecdote from the period comes from Mali, which was ruled until his fall in 1968 by Modibo Keita, the most openly pro-Chinese leader in Africa. The charge´ d’affaires at the Chinese embassy in Bamako was so desperate to demonstrate his ‘‘success’’ in promoting ‘‘Mao Zedong thought’’ that he persuaded Keita to allow the importation and distribution of more than four million copies of the Little Red Book—more than one per capita, irrespective of the recipient’s literacy or lack thereof.

Mao’s death and the ascendancy of Deng Xiaoping led to a shift of Chinese policy priorities on both foreign and domestic fronts. Although the ‘‘Five Principles’’ were continually reiterated as the basis for international relations—they were subsequently incorporated in the agreements establishing diplomatic relations between the PRC and more than 160 countries—Beijing was more concerned about its own economic development and thus interpreted the principles as conferring privilege on ties with nations in a positio to further that goal irrespective of their internal political, social, or ideological systems. As a result, Sino–African ties were moved to the back burner in the late 1970s and remained there through the 1980s, as China focused on forging ties with economic powers like the United States, Japan, and South Korea as well as joining international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Furthermore, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Beijing no longer felt keen pressure to compete for the revolutionary allegiance of Africans against its old rival, and so it scaled back or terminated support for a whole series of projects.

By the 1990s, however, two changes on the world stage redirected the PRC’s gaze back to Africa. First, as a result of the success of its economic modernization program, China quickly found itself the third-largest economy in the world (after the United States and Japan, respectively) and since 2003 the world’s second- largest consumer of petroleum products. If Beijing’s long-term pursuit of a ‘‘peaceful rise’’ (heping jueqi) was to be sustained, China had to find a source to overcome its own scarcity of natural resources. Second, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the wholesale decline of Russia as a major power by almost any index except for its inherited nuclear arsenal left China as the sole power with the potential for challenging America’s ‘‘unipolar’’ hegemony. From its newly prominent place on the world stage, Beijing increasingly emphasized a preference for ‘‘democracy in international relations’’ (guoji guanzi minzhuhua)— that is, a multipolar political and economic order that protected national prerogatives and institutionalized multilateral approaches to global concerns—and needed supportive partners to pursue that agenda.

Consequently, throughout the 1990s, the PRC reenergized its bilateral relations with African countries, especially those in a position to advance its new-found geostrategic goals. Chinese President Yang Shangkun visited the continent in 1992; his successor as president, Jiang Zemin, visited three times, in 1995, 1996, and 2000. In October 1999 Jiang wrote to the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) proposing the creation of a Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The proposal signaled a new phase in Sino– African relations, with the PRC evincing a willingness to engage the continent as a whole rather than through a series of individual bilateral ties. The following year the first meeting of the FOCAC ministerial conference was held in Beijing. Forty-four African states were represented. In his opening address, Jiang noted that

Currently the PRC has diplomatic relations with 48 of Africa’s states, the most recent being Senegal, which resumed ties in October 2005 after a decade-long hiatus during which the West African nation had dealings with Taiwan. Two years earlier, in December 2003, China deployed a contingent of 600 peacekeepers to the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), the first instance of PRC participation in a UN military operation (since then Chinese soldiers have also joined the peace-keeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo). Not so coincidentally, the move took place as the transitional Liberian government switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Increasingly the PRC’s adroit diplomacy has forced Taiwan’s leaders to concentrate even greater resources to retain the paltry handful of small African states that continue to recognize it (Burkina Faso, Chad, the Gambia, Malawi, Sa˜ o Tome´, and Prý´ncipe). 24

In exchange for their diplomatic support, China has provided a limited but still not inconsiderable amount of development assistance to African countries. Here, as in many other areas, Beijing’s policies are focused on long-term dividends rather than short-term gains. Since Bandung, some 6,000 African students have studied in Chinese universities on PRC government scholarships administered by the African Human Resources Development Fund, and Beijing recently promised to more than double that number over the next few years. Typically students spend two years learning Chinese before pursuing training in engineering and other technical disciplines. Not only does this program enhance the PRC’s image in many countries, but its alumni help build up the country’s support among the elites whose ranks they join on returning home from their studies. More directly China has recently inaugurated a three-month, all-expenses-paid course for African diplomats at the Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. 25

Chinese medical, agricultural, and engineering teams have been working in China for decades. Currently about one thousand physicians are working throughout the continent, the successors of the more than 15,000 who have worked in some 47 African countries since 1963. In the 1980s China began to provide nuclear technology to Algeria, including a 15-megawatt reactor at El Salem that became fully operational in 1993. One veteran analyst has noted: ‘‘Beijing prefers technical support over financial aid to African countries for obvious reasons. Financial aid stretches resources and diverts capital from significant needs at home, therefore investments in trade and projects that have a chance at providing returns are more popular than direct aid and loan programs.’’ 26

This preference does not preclude the PRC’s use of direct financial assistance as a tool to advance its larger foreign policy interests. In fact, it often uses the same money twice, so to speak. The no- or low-interest credit that it makes available to African countries not only encourages economic ties but also builds considerable goodwill and political support. Beijing has been effective at leveraging those same loans a second time, for example, by announcing at the 2003 FOCAC meeting that it was forgiving some $1.27 billion in debt owed by 31 African nations. Debt forgiveness earns China significant political capital among African countries, ensuring their support at the United Nations and other international organizations by acknowledging an issue of great importance to many African leaders. Even though the amount being written off is dwarfed by comparison with the loans held by multilateral institutions and Western nations, the cancellation puts China in a diplomatically and symbolically more favorable position vis-a`-vis the West that is perceived as not having moved as dramatically.

Building Strategic Partnerships

Although China’s Africa policy has always sought immediate returns—the recent government paper acknowledges that ‘‘China has provided assistance to the best of its ability to African countries, while African countries have also rendered strong support to China on many occasions’’ 27 —its true objectives are also far-sighted. Perhaps the overriding preoccupation of China’s foreign policy on a grand strategic level is America’s status as the postcold-war world’s leading political, economic, and military power. Even before the advent of the George W. Bush administration, which came into office voicing concern about the challenge that the PRC posed to America in the new century and whose latest iteration of the National Security Strategy pronounced China’s transition ‘‘incomplete’’ 28 and criticized its ‘‘old ways of thinking and acting,’’ 29 in the postcold-war period Washington has taken or threatened to take action on a host of issues ranging from human rights to trade access to the status of Taiwan that at least by its lights adversely affected Beijing. Thus the PRC has increasingly predicated its pursuit of a ‘‘peaceful rise’’ on a vision of ‘‘democracy in international relations’’ for which it requires allies with whom to make common cause in international organizations and other multilateral settings.

In this context, the PRC’s focus on Sino– African relations makes strategic sense. African countries potentially make up the largest single bloc in any international organization in which they participate. Furthermore, both the geographic distance and the development gap between them prevent China’s geopolitical and economic interests from clashing with those of African states in the way that, Beijing’s best efforts notwithstanding, they are bound to collide at some point with those of its Eurasian neighbors. In his speech at the opening of the second FOCAC ministerial meeting in Addis Ababa in December 2003, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao essentially—and explicitly— offered his African counterparts a deal.

Even before Wen made his partnership offer to the Africans, their votes, procured relatively inexpensively, had proved their worth to China. Not only have the votes cast by African states routinely killed resolutions at the UN Commission on Human Rights that would have been embarrassing or at least inconvenient for the PRC, but Africa’s delegates to the International Olympic Committee put Beijing’s bid for the 2008 summer games over the top after it had narrowly lost the 2000 games to Sidney. Over the long term, positioning itself at the head of a bloc of African and other developing countries will be a ‘‘force multiplier’’ of the heft the PRC already wields from its permanent seat on the Security Council.

The burgeoning Sino–African strategic partnership is reinforced by increasing military cooperation—which also has the added benefit of helping ensure the security of China’s investments in the continent’s natural resources and infrastructure. As early as 2001, a study published in the Armed Forces Journal found that ‘‘from the varied evidence of Chinese arms transfers, oil concessions, and military delegations in Africa, it is apparent that China has dramatically increased its military business dealings in Africa.’’ 31 Since then alone China has sold Sudan 12 F-7 Shenyang fighters (the Chinese version of the Russian MiG-21) and Zimbabwe 12 FC-1 multipurpose fighters as well as lighter arms to at least a dozen other African countries. Recently Nigeria, tired of the slow pace of assistance from the United States to protect its oil-rich Niger Delta from a growing insurgency, placed an order with China for dozens of patrol boats. Some coun-tries that cannot afford to make purchases, such as Sierra Leone, which received a naval patrol vessel for its rich fisheries, have even received donations. Western countries still account for the majority of arms transfers to Africa, and according to a RAND Corporation report, 32 Chinese exports are more strongly subject to control by the state that uses them as a foreign policy tool, which has gained China important African allies for its overall political goals.

What’s in It for Africa?

The PRC’s courtship of Africa has not gone unrequited. Africa’s interests, both state and private, have found themselves complementary to those of China. Premier Wen assured the 2003 China–Africa Cooperation summiteers in Addis Ababa that Chinese assistance comes ‘‘with the deepest sincerity and without any political conditionalities,’’ 33 a pledge reiterated by President Hu Jintao the following year when, during his state visit to Gabon, the Chinese head of state declared that the PRC’s relations with the continent would be ‘‘free of political conditionality and serving the interest of Africa and China.’’ 34 It was not surprising that such words found particular resonance with the likes of Hu’s host, Gabon’s El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, who enjoys the dubious distinction of being Africa’s longest serving head of state, having spent almost four decades in power during which time he made more state visits to China (nine) than any other world leader. 35

Perhaps the most well-known beneficiary of Beijing’s ‘‘don’t ask, don’t tell’’ position has been Sudan. With its ownership of 13 of the 15 largest companies and purchase of more than 50 percent of the crude oil, China is both the largest foreign direct investor in and the largest customer of the country’s emergent petroleum production. As French journalist Jean-Christophe Servant observed: ‘‘The cynicism of the government in Beijing became apparent in September 2004, when the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1564, announcing an embargo on arms sales to Sudan. China’s UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, used the massacres in Darfur as a pretext for threatening to veto the resolution, before finally abstaining. The United States-proposed resolution had already been significantly watered down.’’ 36 To be sure, it is not just governments that have found China’s policies in Africa convenient. Allegations have been made from groups as disparate as the humanitarian agency Catholic Relief Services and the neoconservative Institute for the Analysis of Global Security about corrupt business practices by Chinese companies working in some African countries. 37

On the other hand, African nations have benefited in a number of ways from their links with China. On the economic plane alone, China’s growth has sustained a global boom in the prices of the natural resources that are Africa’s primary export. Hard currency earnings on a range of commodities have risen significantly because Chinese demand has exercised upward pressure on prices. Although Chinese investment in Africa has focused primarily on the PRC’s own national priorities, in a part of the world that is starved for capital, almost anyone willing to invest is welcome. Furthermore, although Western media have focused on the competition—primarily for natural resources—among American and European firms and their Chinese counterparts, the fact is that a considerable amount of the activity of Chinese firms is found in labor-intensive undertakings like road construction and agriculture that, although vital for Africa’s future, attract little interest from either Western agencies or investors. Consequently, Chinese investments in these neglected sectors result in a ‘‘win-win’’ scenario: The firms themselves profit while the infrastructure improvements redound to benefit the over-all development of the African countries themselves.

In addition, it should not be forgotten that there are many Africans who sincerely view China as a model for emulation. They draw parallels not only between China’s humiliation at the hands of Western powers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their own experience of colonialism but also Maoist China’s economic catastrophes and their disastrous postindependence pursuit of ‘‘African socialism. ’’ Consequently, irrespective of whether many—or even any—of the particulars of its economic expansion can or should be replicated elsewhere, China’s current rise to great power status, powered by its economic expansion, stands out as an example to many African lead-ers, as does the Chinese Communist party’s ability to adapt to changing global conditions without sacrificing regime stability.

Implications for U.S. Interests

The 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States declares that ‘‘Africa holds growing geo-strategic importance and is a high priority of this Administration’’ 38 —as it should be for a region that supplies America with 16 percent of its petroleum needs and which, according to a report prepared for the National Intelligence Council, will be providing more than one-quarter of its oil imports by 2015, thus surpassing the total volume of oil imports from the Middle East within a decade, to cite just one reason. 39 Consequently, the growing influence of any major actor on the continent bears careful watching by both policymakers and other observers: Although China’s increasing engagement in Africa does not necessarily represent a direct threat to America’s national interests, it does alter the strategic calculus in at least four significant ways.

First, China and many Chinese firms enjoy a competitive edge over their Western homologues. Because most of the Chinese companies investing in Africa are at least partially state owned, their managers often make decisions with an eye on less tangible long-term objectives rather than more measurable financial profits—and, even then, the long-term objectives may be those of the Chinese nation rather than those of a particular business entity. Although a business model that sacrifices short-term gains for long-term advantage is certainly economically comprehensible to Western companies, it is often not practicable to their directors who are subject to share-holder pressures to produce returns on investments. In addition, although donor governments may offer incentives for recipient states in Africa to do business with national firms, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—to which the PRC does not belong—discourages the direct linkage of foreign aid with private or semipublic commercial ventures.

Second, Beijing’s willingness to divorce political conditionality from economic engagements throws a lifeline to odious regimes that might have otherwise collapsed under Western pressure. Zimbabwe is a case in point. If it were not bad enough that its takeover of the extensive agricultural plots owned largely by white commercial farmers has reduced southern Africa’s breadbasket to its basket case in less than half a decade, the Mugabe regime has also ruthlessly ridden roughshod over the country’s civil liberties and, more recently, undertook Operation Murambatsvina (‘‘clear the filth’’) that displaced hundreds of thousands of people. 40 Nonetheless, Chinese investments have continued to flow into the country, including a joint coal venture, a glass factory, a ferrochrome smelting plant, a telephone assembly facility, and beef production in vast tracts, some of which were, until their owners were driven out by Mugabe’s ‘‘war veterans’’ earlier this decade, under grain cultivation. The aging Zimbabwean despot, a recipient of Beijing’s largesse for nearly 40 years, no doubt counts on his Chinese patrons to exercise their Security Council veto against any meaningful UN action against him. In any event, the West no longer enjoys the exclusive franchise and unfettered freedom of action in Africa that some former colonial powers took for granted. 41

Third, even where it does not directly abet odious regimes, the PRC’s emergence as a major player in Africa has occasionally stymied the efforts of other international actors to promote transparency and good governance on the continent. ‘‘Business is business,’’ Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong bluntly told a New York Times interviewer. ‘‘We try to separate politics from business. ... You have tried to impose a market economy and multiparty democracy on these countries, which are not ready for it. We are also against embargos, which you have tried to use against us.’’ 42 The ultimate consequence of this laissez-faire approach is that the leverage of those seeking to promote reforms in Africa has been considerably weakened: too much pressure and they now run the risk that the objects of their attention, especially if they are well endowed with natural resources, will simply turn to an alternative partner.

Fourth, China’s ramped up engagement has altered the balance of military forces on the continent. The PRC now has approximately 1,500 military personnel serving with UN peacekeeping forces in Africa. There are also an estimated 4,000–5,000 Chinese troops who, under cover of being ‘‘contractors,’’ guard hydrocarbon facilities in southern Sudan. China’s partners have also increased their military capacities. For example, it is estimated that Sudan currently plows 80 percent of its $500 million annual oil revenues into weapons purchases. With Beijing’s assistance, Khartoum has also built three weapons factories of its own—useful things to have when one falls under a UN weapons embargo. Furthermore, several Chinese firms, purportedly acting without government authorization, have been implicated in trafficking rocket propelled grenade launchers and other arms to rebels and mercenaries involved in low-intensity conflicts in places like Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Coˆte d’Ivoire.

Although it would be a mistake—to say nothing of a needless and dangerous escalation of tensions—to interpret these challenges to mean that the PRC must be considered America’s adversary, the United States must recognize that China’s economic prosperity requires it to seek both natural resources and markets and, in turn, to secure them through increased diplomatic action in places like Africa that offer prospects of both. These quests have changed and will continue to affect the economic, political, and strategic dynamics of the Africa continent where America will necessarily find itself increasingly engaged in the twenty-first century.

The answer, however, is not resentment and hostility but creative engagement in both Africa and China—a visit to Beijing in November 2005 by United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer marked a significant first step toward the latter. Although an unfounded irenic worldview would ill serve America’s national interests, an uncritical hermeneutic of suspicion would do so likewise. It should be noted, for example, that for all of its investments—to say nothing of its political reservations about precedents that could be invoked against it—the PRC has been careful to abstain rather than veto UN Security Council actions against the Sudanese government, including the referral of the human rights violations in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. In short, there are at least some indications that Beijing can be sufficiently flexible if Washington is willing to reciprocate.

With respect to African states, the United States needs to continue to develop a comprehensive, proactive strategy in place of what heretofore has been its ad hoc, reactive approach. Committed and consistent engagement even of what former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen has termed ‘‘nonvital interests’’ 43 will do more to promote American interests and advance its influence than ill-counseled attempts to contain Chinese commercial and diplomatic forays. Washington, which is officially committed to diversifying its energy supplies, can also do more to encourage American firms, with their extraordinary access to capital and technology, to invest in developing Africa’s hydrocarbon as well as other natural resources.

Conclusion

For the international community in general but especially for the United States, the PRC’s Africa strategy represents both a challenge and an opportunity. There are plenty of possible conflicts. America may come to view China as a rival in a zero-sum competition for material resources and political spheres of influence in Africa, whereas Beijing—always wary of outside involvement in the internal affairs of other countries—may interpret Washington’s promotion of democracy and good governance on the continent as a play for hegemony that will cut off access to the resources and markets it needs to continue its ‘‘peaceful rise’’ to great power status. On the other hand, there are also common interests that could potentially outweigh conflicts. As the PRC grows more confident of its place on the world stage, it is doubtful that it will want to be viewed as the bailer of choice for Africa’s tyrants. For its part, with its forces stretched to unprecedented limits by its multiple commitments and its citizenry increasingly wary of entanglements in foreign conflicts, the United States will need partners who can exercise leverage with some of these regimes.

Furthermore, there may be ways, as yet unexplored, in which the economic and diplomatic investments of both countries in Africa would prove to be complementary to each other as well as beneficial to Africans. In either case, as they increasingly view Africa—and each other—strategically, scholars, opinion leaders, and policymakers in both Washington and Beijing would do well to exercise prudence as well as initiative, heeding the wisdom of an ancient Chinese proverb: ‘‘If you want to know your future, look into your present actions.’’

About the Author

A member of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy’s Board of Advisers, J. Peter Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University and a resident fellow of the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance. A frequent commentator on international political, legal, and religious affairs, Dr. Pham’s most recent book is Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Conflict (2005).

Notes