Chinese Private Security Companies in Latin America

The enormous expansion of global engagement by China and its companies over the past two decades has generated a corresponding need to protect Chinese operations and personnel in the dangerous environments where they sometimes operate. Awareness of such needs for protection among the Chinese public was most obviously expressed in the “Wolf Warrior” movies, in which Chinese citizens working abroad are threatened by foreign mercenaries and must be rescued. 

The need to evacuate Chinese citizens from Libya in 2011 and Yemen in 2015 due to political turmoil in those countries, as well as recent attacks against Chinese nationals in Pakistan, highlighted the imperative for Beijing to protect its people, as well as its growing military and other capabilities for doing so. It also illustrated how China’s desire to project itself as respectful of the sovereignty of other nations – reflected in its 2015 Military Strategy and 2019 Defense Strategy White Papers – restricts its options for official military action.

China-based companies have responded to these risks to their overseas operations through a combination of working with local authorities and contracting private security companies (PSCs). In recent years, private security companies have begun to form in China to support operations both at home and abroad. The proliferation of Chinese PSCs has arguably been based on the presumption that the cultural familiarity, common language, and relationships with fellow Chinese will give such companies an inside track with Chinese companies in need of protection.

By 2022, there were an estimated 7,000 Chinese PSCs, with 20-40 such PSCs operating abroad in as many as 40 countries.  

The scope of Chinese private security companies is broad, encompassing everything from firms selling principally electronic surveillance systems, to consulting, to providing armed personnel on the ground to physically defend Chinese persons and assets. In general, Chinese deployment of private security companies has been most extensive in Asia, and to a lesser extent in Africa, where their familiarity with local cultural practices is strongest, and local governments are relatively malleable. In more developed countries and in Latin America and the Caribbean, PSCs have been more limited by their lack of experience, in competition with established and well-resourced companies with knowledge of working within (or around) local laws.