A mysterious assassination of Chinese miners in the heart of Africa puts pressure on Beijing

The Chinese Embassy at Central African Republic He issued a stark warning to his compatriots in this landlocked country: do not leave the capital, Bangui. Abductions of foreigners were on the rise, and any Chinese found outside Bangui had to be evacuated immediately.

Less than a week later, on March 19, a group of armed men raided a remote gold mine away from Bangui and killed nine Chinese workers.

The Central African government said it had investigated the massacre and concluded it had planned it a large rebel group. The rebels denied the accusation and blamed a third party operating in the country: the Russian mercenary group Wagner, which in turn accused the rebels. Neither party has presented evidence to support their claims.

The investigation left a trail of questions no answer on the motives and methods of the aggressors. According to a diplomat briefed on the investigation, more than a dozen Central African soldiers were supposed to be guarding the site, but only four of them were present on the day of the attack and all survived.

The victims were not identified and their bodies were cremated shortly after the attack. A local mayor said the workers they were shot at point blank range. A photo shared by local and Western officials stationed in the country showed how the attackers moved they left the corpses face down in a row on the mud rust-colored, as if they wanted to send a message.

The confusion surrounding the murders highlighted the growing security problem facing the Chinese government as Chinese companies they were rapidly expanding their businesses around the worldoften entering conflict zones with unstable governments and armed groups vying for territory.

Chinese workers have faced growing threats in countries including Nigeria, Congo and Pakistan, including a suicide bombing last year that hit a Chinese cultural center in Karachi, Pakistan, killing three Chinese teachers. In 2020, three Chinese nationals died after a Chinese-owned warehouse caught fire in Zambia.

The attacks highlighted the growing disconnect between China’s economic ambitions and its overseas security apparatus, which relies on a patchwork of local militaries, mercenaries and private companies to protect Chinese workers, analysts said.

The Chinese military has a minimal presence abroad and a limited ability to project forces beyond its borders, according to John Van Oudenaren, a China foreign policy analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, a think tank.

But the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, aggressively promoted a more nationalist image of Chinaincreasing the pressure on his government to prove that China actively protects its citizens abroad.

At the end of April, as part of the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Sudan, a country shaken by a war between two rival generals, the Chinese government sent a military ship with a banner: “President Xi sent this warship to bring everyone home.”

“China it is on thin ice in the sense that they are entering in some of the worst governed places in the world and supercharge conflict,” said Ammar Malik, a senior researcher at William & Mary who tracks Chinese development funding. “And every time there is an attack, Chinese public opinion is angry and China is being forced to reconsider its hands-off approach.”

In the aftermath of the Central African Republic killings, users of Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, sarcastically commented that the attack didn’t fit China’s image in the Wolf Warrior films, a pair of Chinese nationalist action films promoting the idea that China would always protect its citizens from danger in foreign lands.

However, most online commentary about the bombing was heavily censored, and Weibo downplayed hashtags about the deaths. Instead, the site featured a harsh public rebuke from Xi, who demanded that the attackers be severely punished.

Wagner’s group

The allegations surrounding Wagner’s possible involvement are particularly sensitive to China and aim at the complications Xi faces in the closest ties with Russiaeven in the midst of the war in Ukraine, with the aim of counterbalancing the United States and its Western allies.

The killings came a day before Xi landed in Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Some Chinese influencers, such as Hu Xijin, former editor of the Communist Party newspaper Global Times, said those who blamed Wagner for the attack They were trying to undermine Sino-Russian relations.

Wagner, a private network of Kremlin-backed companies dedicated to security, political influence and the exploitation of natural resources, has had a commanding presence in the CAR since 2018. It provides personal protection and political support to President Faustin-Archange Touadéra. , in exchange for access to diamonds, gold and timber.

In many parts of the country, Wagner drove rebel groups out of resource-rich areas, prompting them to resort more to kidnapping for ransom.

In early March, miners began work near the town of Chimbolo, several hours northeast of the capital. The Chinese company Gold Coast Group was opening a new gold mine there. The attack came shortly after.

Investigators and local officials say the area is controlled by Wagner and the Central African Army. But the government has blamed the Coalition of Patriots for Change, an alliance of rebel groups. In response, Aboubakar Siddick Ali, a spokesman for the group, said in an interview that the rebels were not operating in the area to avoid being “cornered by Wagner”.

A source of money for mercenaries

Wagner became more dependent on its mining operations in Africa, a source of cash that helps businessmen close to the Kremlin evade Western sanctions imposed after their full-scale invasion of Ukraine, said Alessandro Arduino, a Chinese security expert at King’s College London.

“Wagner and China have the same exploitative interest in Africa, but Wagner thrives in chaos, while China needs stability,” Arduino said.

Gold Coast, which could not be reached for comment, is one of many small Chinese mining companies that have been trying to extract gold from the Central African Republic in recent years.

According to investigators, those companies have diverted watercourses to exploit river beds, damaging the environment and irritating local populations. Many of them have also been accused of human rights violations.

“The presence of foreign companies creates tensions with the local population, as was to be expected,” said Olivier Mbombo Mossito, who previously worked as a prosecutor in Bambari, the city closest to the site of the massacre. “The takeover of this mining site by a Chinese company may have caused some anger, but from whom?”

Arnaud Djoubaye Abazène, the Central African Republic’s justice minister, told reporters last month that rebels were “undoubtedly” behind the killing. But he did not provide any evidence or answer journalists’ questions. He thanked “our Russian allies” for arresting and killing some of the suspected attackers, who have not been identified.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s boss, said in a written response to questions that “the bandits killed the Chinese.”

“The bandits have been found,” Prigozhin wrote. “There is nothing to discuss here.”

But Western researchers and diplomats say the miners’ killings don’t fit the profile of how rebel groups have attacked Chinese nationals in the past. These groups typically kidnap Chinese workers for ransom from their employers, while execution-style killings are very rare.

The press conference of the Minister of Justice was attended by two Chinese officials sent by Beijing. They said they still haven’t been able to access the crime scene.

The mine has been closed since 19 March. China repatriated about 80 citizens shortly after the assassination.

c.2023 The New York Times Society