China's African Peacekeeping Decisionmaking in the Hu Jintao Era

Peacekeeping intervention is a tool that strengthens or fulfills China’s policy goals in Africa. In terms of promoting economic cooperation or gaining access to natural resources, it imperative that a secure and stable environment is created, not only to maintain diplomatic relations with its African partners, but also to express the harmonious worldview and peaceful development concepts, which rose to prominence under the presidency of Hu Jintao. The purpose of this book is therefore to examine the extent to which peacekeeping contributes to China’s relations with Liberia, the DRC and Sudan-Darfur. Two models are employed to shed light on this thesis. The rational actor model (RAM) developed by Graham Allison is used in the first instance to explain the goals for each country, the options considered to reach the goals, the consequences or outcomes of choice that will ensure whether a particular option is chosen, and then selecting the option that ranks the highest in the leadership’s payoff function. The bureaucratic politics model (BPM) is used in the second instance to show the bargaining, competing and compromising positions of the bureaucracy. The finding of both models shows mixed results in the countries analyzed.