SNR NAVY CAPT L.XIANCHEN
At the 2024 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed that China and Africa work together to jointly advance modernization underpinned by peace and security. The Global Security Initiate (GSI) and the concept of Building a Maritime Community with a Shared Future can provide guidance of thought and reference for maintaining a good order at sea for Africa. To build a maritime community with a shared future is to create peaceful, secure, prosperous, open, inclusive, clean and beautiful seas and oceans, for jointly safeguarding maritime peace and tranquillity. To build a maritime community with a shared future is to jointly address maritime security threats, jointly promote maritime prosperity and development, jointly advance the integration of maritime cultures, and jointly protect the marine ecological environment. We promote common security, comprehensive security, collaborative security, and sustainable security, respecting and accommodating legitimate concerns of all parties regarding maritime security, promoting maritime security via enhanced communication, seeking common ground while respecting differences, and fostering mutual trust, thereby achieving a dynamic balance between security and development. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy will continue to uphold the principle of sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith, through oceangoing escorts, international rescues and medical services, strengthening strategic communication and practical cooperation with its African counterparts to jointly take the Partnership Action for Common Security.
DR G. VANDYCK
The dynamic and interconnected nature of maritime security demands an adaptive approach to effectively safeguard waters against an array of evolving threats. Leveraging Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory, this study explores the development of maritime security strategies that are designed to enhance resilience within this complex environment. CAS theory conceptualizes maritime security as a multifaceted system composed of various interacting components, including government agencies, international organizations, private sector stakeholders, and environmental factors. This perspective underscores the importance of decentralized decision-making, wherein authority is distributed across different levels to enable
more localized and timely responses. Additionally, CAS theory highlights the need for robust feedback loops and continuous learning mechanisms that allow the system to
adapt and evolve based on real-time data and emerging challenges.
Prioritizing adaptability over rigid control will enable the development of maritime security strategies that are modular and scalable, allowing them to adjust dynamically to changing conditions and new information. This approach fosters a more resilient security framework, capable of withstanding and adapting to disruptions caused by both anticipated and unforeseen threats. Ultimately, this adaptive framework provides a comprehensive and flexible solution for safeguarding African waters, ensuring that security measures remain effective in a continuously shifting threat landscape.
PROF L. OTTO
Maritime diplomacy has become an increasingly important tool for states in the context of maritime issues, and indeed climate issues that are manifest in the ocean space, rising in importance on the global agenda. Africa’s island states, and Mauritius in particular, have taken a purposeful approach to centring maritime issues in the diplomatic practice; something that is not unexpected for states that are isolated and whose relationship with ocean is defining feature of both domestic and foreign policy. Africa’s littoral states have a less purposeful approach, one that has often been characterised by sea blindness and mixed responses to the many threats and opportunities that emanate from the ocean. This paper will examine the nature of and utility of maritime diplomacy to Africa’s littoral and island states, teasing out the different outlooks and pointing to some successes and failures in their deployment of maritime diplomacy.Â