At the beginning of August, Chinese and Angolan police cooperated in a crackdown on 12 criminal gangs that led to the rescue of 14 Chinese victims. On August 25, 37 Chinese suspects were extradited to China from Angola under police escort. Zhang Zhongxiang, Deputy Director of the African Studies Center of Shanghai Normal University, asserts in a commentary written for ChinAfrica that this is the result of a gradual expansion in cooperation between China and African nations. Excerpts follow:

As a global issue, transnational crime, just like climate change, pandemic disease, and economic crisis, is the product of the era of globalization. Since the 1990s, China has encouraged Chinese companies to go global. Especially after its entry into the WTO in 2001, China has rapidly integrated into the world economic system. In 2011, there were 18,000 Chinese companies doing business in overseas markets.

The number of Chinese citizens who travel abroad for tourism, business, or work has been gradually increasing as China continues to open up to the outside world. By the end of 2011, the number of Chinese traveling abroad reached 70.25 million. At the same time, there have been frequent security incidents involving Chinese citizens overseas, some of them relating to transnational organized crime. For instance, on October 5, 2011, two Chinese small transport vessels were hijacked in the Golden Triangle area of the Mekong River, and 13 Chinese crew members were killed in Thai territory. After this tragedy, and following a proposal by China, China, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand established a cooperative security initiative allowing law enforcement to jointly combat transnational crime on the Mekong River, which links the four countries.

With the development of relations between China and African nations, the growing number of Chinese citizens in Africa also face transnational organized crime. Since the establishment of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000, especially after the 2006 Beijing Summit, Chinese-African cooperation has been booming, with China becoming Africa's largest trading partner in 2009. In 2011, the volume of trade between China and African countries reached $166.3 billion, and China's direct investment in Africa surpassed $15 billion. In the same year, the number of Chinese tourists to Africa exceeded 1 million.

But organized crime has been growing along with economic cooperation, and is a serious problem for Chinese citizens residing in African countries such as Angola, South Africa, Zambia and Ethiopia. In these countries, the Chinese population is sizable, and there is more active economic and trade cooperation between Chinese citizens and locals. Events in Angola are a prime example of the dangers present in Africa. Last year in Angola, Chinese citizens were taken in 14 kidnapping cases, and five of these victims were murdered. Out of concern for their safety, many Chinese businesspeople have moved away from Luanda, the capital of the country, and some have even hired teams of bodyguards. This has seriously affected Chinese businesspeople's trading activities in the area.

But these are not the only threats faced by the Chinese people in Africa. Transnational organized crime has been seriously threatening the safety of Chinese people in Africa. Since 2009, Chinese criminals in Angola have frequently engaged in criminal activities targeting Chinese citizens, including robbery, kidnapping, extortion, abduction of women, and forced prostitution. These examples from Angola constitute only a small sample of Chinese organized crime in Africa. China and African countries need to work together to combat those new problems and ensure the healthy development of China-Africa relations.

China and Angola have already set an example by cooperating closely to combat transnational organized crime. On April 25, 2012, Meng Jianzhu, Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Public Security, and Sebastiao Martins, Angolan Minister of the Interior, met in Beijing. The two sides agreed that they should further increase exchanges, promote pragmatic cooperation, and jointly crack down on cross-border criminal activities. They also signed the Chinese-Angolan Cooperation Agreement on the Protection of Public Security and Social Order, establishing the legal basis for joint action carried out in Angola in the fight against transnational crime.  

Just as has been done with police cooperation, consular and judicial cooperation between China and Africa should also be strengthened. This would help enhance China-Africa exchanges on a people-to-people level. Many Chinese go to Africa for tourism, business, and work, and large numbers of Africans also come to China. There are currently more than 20,000 African students studying at Chinese universities, and a large number of African people do business in the cities of Guangzhou and Yiwu. Over 100,000 Africans live in Guangzhou alone. Africans in China also face many problems. It is for this reason that consular and judicial cooperation between China and Africa need to be strengthened to create more favorable conditions for personnel exchanges while also fighting illegal migration.

The growing number of personnel exchanges between China and Africa demonstrates the deepening of Sino-African cooperation. China and African countries have not only achieved fruitful outcomes by cooperating in the fields of economy, politics, culture, and international affairs, but also launched their cooperation in the consular and judicial fields.

The future of China-Africa consular and judicial cooperation looks promising. The Beijing Action Plan (2013-15) adopted at the Fifth Ministerial Conference of FOCAC this past July stated that: "The two sides will promote exchanges and cooperation in the judicial, law enforcement and legislative fields, including preventing and fighting transnational organized crime in accordance with bilateral treaties and multilateral conventions."