An old adage posits that there is safety in numbers. However the growing number of Chinese workers and businesspeople in Africa seems to belie this wisdom, as recent incidents of kidnapping show.

Some reports in Western media have indicated that the January 2012 cases of 29 Chinese road workers being kidnapped by rebels in Southern Kordofan, an unstable oil-rich area of Sudan and 25 Chinese taken hostage in Egypt are examples of anti-Chinese sentiment in Africa. However there is no evidence of this. Experts point to the fact that because Chinese companies are investing in ever more high risk locations, as they seek to promote local economic and social investment, their workers will be seen as soft targets and valuable as bargaining chips in local African conflicts. "Chinese companies go to these dangerous countries without evaluating regional instability and volatile situations," said Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. "Now we are meeting trouble: This is a big lesson."

The situation is compounded by the fact that the big infrastructure projects favored by Chinese companies such as highways, airports, bridges and dams are carried out in remote locations. Because of this Chinese workers tend to live in camps with little security features and the concentrated lifestyle and far-flung sites makes them vulnerable to kidnapping and other criminal attacks. He Wenping, an expert on African studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said another reason for the security complacency by Chinese is the fact that they tend to take it for granted that their safety can be ensured because of the traditional friendship between China and Africa. It's time for a wake up call.

The Asia Times reports that in the past five years, over 100 Chinese citizens living abroad have been kidnapped or attacked, with 14 killed, in 10 countries such as Afghanistan, Cameroon, Columbia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nigeria, Thailand and Yemen. What had a major impact on the most recent cases is that they took place during the Chinese New Year, traditionally the time for family reunion. With the Internet now allowing hundreds of millions of Chinese to access and comment on news, an anxious public are asking questions about the security of Chinese workers in Africa as violence and hostage-asking becomes more frequent.

Ensuring workers' safety is no easy task. China's policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other sovereign nations is well known. This means that using Chinese security guards to protect worker camps is unlikely, as is any military intervention in the case of kidnappings. Instead the safety of Chinese workers is often left to local security companies, which is not always proving effective. Beijing is most unlikely to want to send its forces abroad to countries such as Sudan, said Shen. "We don't know their politics or their conflicts; how could we handle them?" he said.

Ultimately diplomatic solutions are the most effective way to deal with Chinese workers once they have been kidnapped - requesting access to hostages, seeing they are well treated and negotiating a peaceful release.

Preventing the situation from happening in the first place may be more difficult. China needs to build a wide-ranging policy that includes diplomacy and action to protect Chinese workers and interests in Africa. And this policy needs to be effective in times of peace and conflict.

The Editor