Xi Jinping’s four principles for peace and stability in Africa
President Xi Jinping outlined four principles for tackling African conflicts during his meeting with the President of the Council of Ministers of Togo, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in October.
How important are these principles at this juncture in Africa? The major conflict hotspots across Africa span several regions, primarily driven by civil wars, geopolitical tensions, and violent extremist insurgencies.
More importantly, Africa’s recurring conflicts demonstrate how internal political divisions, regional rivalries, and external involvement reinforce instability and obstruct development. External actors, including neighbouring states and more distant powers, complicate conflict resolution when their strategic, political or economic interests intersect with local rivalries.
Many of these conflicts have become heavily “internationalised”, serving as proxy battlegrounds for regional and global powers seeking resources, maritime routes, or geopolitical influence in ways which complicate peace efforts.
The Horn of Africa and East Africa have witnessed intrastate conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. Renewed fighting between Ethiopian federal forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front has placed the 2022 Pretoria Peace Agreement under considerable pressure. Tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea threaten to stir broader regional instability.
Ethiopia’s desire for dependable access to the Red Sea, conflicting territorial claims, and accusations of cross-border meddling serve as examples of how domestic conflicts can take on global dimensions.
A catastrophic famine and a severe displacement crisis have resulted from the devastating civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Sudan’s conflict involves numerous continental and international parties.
Significant jihadist insurgencies have persisted in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, endangering capital supply routes, urban infrastructure, peace, and stability throughout the Sahel and West Africa. Insecurity in Benin, Togo, and Nigeria has been fuelled by these conflicts that have overlapped and changed due to localised destabilising factors. Long-term solutions to the ongoing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and portions of Mozambique are still elusive in Southern Africa.
The resort to zero-sum violence threatens to wipe out significant economic rewards from decades of China-Africa cooperation within countries and across subregions. The consequences of conflicts in Africa range from violent destruction of infrastructure, displacement of populations, disruption of trade corridors, weakened public services, reduced investor confidence, and diversion of scarce resources from productive investment toward military expenditure.
These pressures undermine national development strategies, cross-border economic cooperation and the African Continental Free Trade Area’s ambitions. The most promising dimension of the four principles is their explicit recognition that peace and development are mutually reinforcing. Armed conflict discourages long-term investment, increases infrastructure costs, disrupts regional supply chains and undermines economic planning.
However, infrastructure projects connecting neighbouring countries through reliable railways, roads, energy networks and ports can facilitate trade, attract investment and strengthen economic interdependence to generate mutually beneficial shared economic interests, encouraging governments to maintain peaceful relations. Sustained development can create employment, expand opportunities and strengthen the economic incentives for political stability.
In this regard, the four principles offer an important framework for strengthening peace, regional stability and sustainable development across the continent. Together, these principles provide a framework linking conflict prevention, political reconciliation and economic development. Their significance extends beyond individual conflicts to the wider challenge of creating a stable continental environment conducive to investment, infrastructure development, regional integration and economic growth.
The first principle prioritises African-led solutions and discourages external interference in domestic affairs. The second emphasises sovereignty, territorial integrity and adherence to the United Nations Charter. The third advocates ceasefires, negotiation and political dialogue rather than military force and coercive sanctions. The fourth recognises that lasting peace requires addressing both immediate security threats and the underlying socioeconomic conditions that sustain instability.
By emphasising African ownership of peace processes, respect for national sovereignty, dialogue rather than military confrontation, and the relationship between security and development, Beijing is advancing a diplomatic approach that complements existing African and international peace initiatives.
Rather than imposing externally designed settlements, Beijing has generally supported diplomatic processes led by the countries concerned and by organisations such as the African Union. The responsibility to pursue genuinely inclusive, homegrown and legitimate political processes rests with African governments.
Such an approach could allow and deepen regional cooperation and economic reconstruction capable of addressing the long-term structural grievances which fuel domestic and cross-border violent mobilisation, while insulating peace processes from perverse external interests.
China plays an increasingly active role in supporting peace and security efforts in Africa, blending economic investments, multilateral diplomacy, peacekeeping, and military assistance. China is the leading contributor of UN peacekeepers among the permanent members of the UN Security Council, with most of its deployed troops and police stationed across African missions in close coordination with the AU and its subregional communities.
Beijing strongly backs the AU’s security frameworks and institutions, such as the African Standby Force and the goal of “silencing the Guns” through financial aid, military equipment grants, and specialized training.
The AU has institutionalised a wide range of mechanisms and tools operationalised through the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and promotes a dialogue-centred preventive approach to conflict resolution under the guiding principle of “African solutions to African problems” anchored by Aspiration 4 of Agenda 2063 for a peaceful and secure continent.
The AU Peace and Security Council acts as the standing decision-making body for preventing, managing, and resolving conflicts. Under Article 4(h) of the AU Constitutive Act, the Union holds the right to intervene in a member state in respect of grave circumstances, such as war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.
Official AU policy stresses that lasting peace requires tackling structural drivers of conflicts such as poverty, poor governance, political exclusion, and resource inequality. China’s approach to conflict and peace is rooted in the core principles supporting the national sovereignty and self-determination of other nations.
This position significantly respects and reinforces African agency in ”resolving African issues in the African way”.
China’s commitment to non-interference in domestic political systems and addressing both the root causes and symptoms of conflict through economic development is important to resolving conflicts in a continent still struggling with the legacy of historical structural hegemony and domestic conflicts fuelled by external machinations and interference.
China uses its diplomatic channels and principles of non-interference to engage in conflict mediation and political consultations in hotspot regions like Sudan, South Sudan, the Horn of Africa, and the Great Lakes region.
Through platforms like the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum, Beijing provides military hardware, counter-terrorism capacity-building, and joint exercises with African defence forces to foster national and continental security.
By supporting African-led settlements, coordinating with international partners and linking reconstruction to regional economic integration, Beijing makes a significant contribution to reducing conflict and strengthening development prospects.
However, lasting peace and development in Africa ultimately depend on national, regional and continental resolve to address internal contradictions through dialogue and mediation, fostering inclusivity rather than intransigent zero-sum approaches which fuel violence. The four principles provide an important framework from a trusted and credible friend of Africa.
It remains to be seen if African leaders in conflict areas will adopt these values and capitalise on the benefits of peace and stability in order to establish the necessary conditions for mutual prosperity.
Reference Link:- https://iol.co.za/sundayindependent/dispatch/2026-11-03-xi-jinpings-four-principles-for-peace-and-stability-in-africa/
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
