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Veteran Chinese soldier sets up new security firm

Peter Lyderik

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http://chinaplus.cri.cn/news/china/9/20180116/78770.html
A Chinese soldier who served in the French Foreign Legion has launched a recruitment drive to create an all-Chinese crew to serve as security for overseas Chinese companies, reports the Chengdu Economic Daily.
35-year-old Fu Chen served in the infantry in the French Foreign Legion from 2010 to 2015.
Among his assignments was a 4-month tour of Mali after the military coup destabilized the western African country in 2013, allowing al-Qaeda and its tribal allies to take over the northern half of the country in the Sahel.
Wrapping up his service with the French Foreign Legion, Fu Chen has now registered a security company in his native Tianjin.
He's already been able to recruit a number of Chinese military veterans from Sichuan.
He says he plans to conduct a series of training courses in Poland for his recruits, with a focus on risk prevention.
 

SnafuSmite

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Interesting article, I feel the Chinese are greatly increasing their international presence, especially here in Africa. An all Chinese PMC is a very unique development.
 

Nickfury

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I think he's a smart guy. Makes sense that Chinese companies would want to hire a Chinese PMC and a CEO that has experience in Europe and Africa and speaks multiple languages.

Europe has been meddling and investing (or extracting as the case may be) in Africa forever, now we see China and the U.S. getting a lot more involved there. Though China is more investment/extraction and the U.S. is more a pure military/influence mission objective. It's a mixed bag with Chinese investment, sure some huge projects will get funded for some African nations, some politicians in Africa will greatly expand their Swiss Bank accounts and the plundering of African natural resources will accelerate, not to mention the massive increase in poaching of rare animals anywhere the Chinese are in Africa (or the world). But there might be a general positive trend for average Africans with more jobs and infrastructure. A little shit, a little silver.
 

a1b2c3

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I wish him the best of luck and hope that he has some good contacts (guanxi).

Chinese private security services and companies have been around a while, for those that are interested...here are some good articles.

https://intpolicydigest.org/2017/09...ese-private-military-contractors-replace-pla/
http://feraljundi.com/2017/02/26/china-obor-africa-and-chinas-growing-pmsc-industry/
https://jamestown.org/program/chinas-private-security-companies-domestic-international-roles/
http://feraljundi.com/2012/02/22/china-enter-the-private-security-dragon/

I recently read an article about how the Chinese are 100% responsible for the security of the oil pipeline in Kazakhstan, or one of the other -stan's, but not find the link.
 

a1b2c3

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Yup...One Belt One Road aka OBOR, as discussed in the 2nd link I posted above. Not just rail though, also has maritime component (that passes through the South China Sea).

https://www.eiu.com/topic/one-belt-one-road
https://www.clsa.com/special/onebeltoneroad/

Lots of work for companies that get involved in it, in places that have traditionally not have had as much focus in terms of this thread. Erik Prince's venture, Frontier Services Group, is pretty heavily involved in it, for example. But lots of other companies, large and small, have various slices of the pie, so to speak.
 
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When I was in HK there were 2 Brit local security companies. And as I recall only one all local Chinese. I opened up Wackenhut HK after previously being GM The Gulf Security Company Kuwait for a few years.
 
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