The One Belt One Road (OBOR), also known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013 to promote economic development and exchanges between China and over 60 countries is gaining momentum. Nevertheless, OBOR necessitates a wide range of security considerations along both the maritime and land routes.

2016 began in China with the killing of three Chinese executives from China Railways Construction Corp in Mali during a terrorist attack at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako. While non-traditional security threats characterise only a part of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) Initiative – also known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched by China in 2013 to advance its economic, diplomatic and strategic objectives, several other crises may arise in a number of countries with substantial Chinese investments. These would include social confrontations between local and Chinese workers, environmental degradation issues as well as disputes over an apparent lack of corporate social responsibilities on the part of Chinese firms.

This has led to the evolution of Chinese private security companies (PSCs). Their business is to facilitate an efficient model that provides security assessments, scenario planning, crisis prevention and mitigation will be a key contribution towards the long-term international economic cooperation and sustainable development that is at the core of OBOR. Together, Singapore’s academic institutions as well as the country’s private sector have the expertise to promote training and facilitate knowledge transfer to Chinese PSCs will benefit the latter significantly.

… Alessandro Arduino PhD is the co–director of the Security & Crisis Management programme at the Shanghai Academy of Social Science (SASS) and was a Visiting Senior Fellow with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He contributed this to RSIS Commentary.