Regional Security Governance In West Africa And China-West Africa Security Cooperation

After the end of the Cold War,the security situation in Africa has undergone new changes.In the past,many hidden security risks covered by the bipolar structure began to ferment.Intrastate conflicts gradually replaced interstate conflicts as the main security threat.Issues such as coups,civil wars,famine,refugee flows,diseases,and ethnic conflicts dominate Africa's security agenda.The geographical proximity of countries in the region makes these security issues more likely to spillover.The internal conflicts of a country can spread to other countries,thus threatening the security and stability of the entire region.As one of the most frequent sub-regions in Africa where conflicts broke out,West Africa experienced a series of major armed conflicts in the 1990s.Due to their weak national strength and institutions,these countries are not only difficult to deal with conflicts alone but are often affected by conflicts in neighboring countries,which means they have to use collective power to maintain their security Against this background,the Economic Community of West African Countries has gradually assumed the function of maintaining security and stability in the regionWest Africa's security governance institution established with the 1999 Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention,Management,Resolution,Peace-Keeping and Security at its core is not only Africa's first comprehensive and multidimensional regional peace and security mechanism but also the first regional organization which formally incorporated the principle of humanitarian intervention into legal documents and the first practice of legitimizing the use of force to prevent the overthrow of elected governments.The intervention of the ECOWAS in a country's internal conflict has broken the tradition of not interfering in the internal affairs of a country.While solving security issues,it has also begun to incorporate development issues,especially democracy and good governance into the framework.In recent years,the ECOWAS has explored ways to actively maintain peace and has also made certain achievements in conflict prevention,early warning and response system.The construction of the ECOWAS security mechanism highlights the importance of comprehensive security in regional security governance.Compared with traditional collective security,the new regional security governance has made breakthroughs in terms of security referent objects,security fields,and security measures,and demonstrates diverse,comprehensive,and open characteristics.In practice,the ECOWAS pays more and more attention to "human security",incorporates various types of security issues into the governance system,and also realizes joint governance with international organizations such as the African Union and the United Nations Besides,security governance in West Africa also involves the participation of extra-regional actors,and some major powers play important roles in it.With the improvement of the overall national strength and the growth of overseas interests,China is strengthening cooperation with the ECOWAS and West African countries in the field of security and helping it improve its ability to independently build peace and security From the perspective of Regional Security Governance,this thesis will analyze and discuss the experience and lessons of the ECOWAS security governance at the mechanism and practical levels,as well as the characteristics and trends of security cooperation between China and West AfricaThe thesis first sorts out and analyzes the theoretical framework of regional security governance and the types of security issues in West Africa.Summarize the characteristics of regional security governance,including multiple layers of governance actors,linkage with national,regional,and global governance,beyond the traditional security agenda;introduce regional coordination mechanisms,regional management mechanisms,and regional monitoring mechanisms as the operating mechanism of regional security governance.After analyzing the main security problems and their causes in West Africa,it finds out that the current security situation in West Africa is still not optimistic.Internationalized internal conflicts,especially terrorism,have become the main security challenge in West Africa.Secondly,to explore the countermeasures of the ECOWAS mechanism and norms to solve these security problems,including the motivation,process,and characteristics of the ECOWAS transition to the security field,and conclude that the ECOWAS regional security governance shows comprehensive governance at the mechanism level,forming a regional peace and security architecture with mediation and preventive diplomacy as the core,security norms have shown a trend of transitioning from regime security to human security,and civil society has actively participated,presenting multiple layers of security from regional to global governance image.Furthermore,analyze the practice of the ECOWAS in resolving conflict issues,select the Mali Crisis from 2012 to 2013 as a study case,and explore how ECOWAS as the main security architecture in the region uses its mechanisms to play the role and deal with coup d'etat and armed conflicts.The serious lack of peacekeeping capacity is the biggest problem encountered by the ECOWAS in conflict governance.The pattern of multilateral cooperation and interregional cooperation is needed to improve its ability to solve problems.Finally,comparing the similarities and differences between China and France in security cooperation with West Africa,it is found that although France has far exceeded China in the breadth and depth of cooperation with ECOWAS,its deep involvement in West Africa security affairs and even unilateralism on some issues the approach of which is not suitable for China to learn from.There is still room for further development of China's participation in West Africa security governance in the future,especially in the non-traditional security field,where China can play a constructive role.