UNIFORMLESS OCCUPATION: PEKING AND MOSCOW’S NEW GENERATION SHADOW ARMIES PART 5: The Long Arm of the State: Are Chinese Security Companies Truly Private?

Across a multi-billion-dollar trade network spanning from Africa’s vast mineral deposits to strategic ports, a uniformless army is rapidly expanding—one that no everyone speaks about aloud today. Instead of drawing unwanted attention by establishing military bases worldwide, China has built a new generation of cross-border power under the guise of “private security.” Tasked with protecting massive investments and thousands of Chinese workers along the “Belt and Road” routes, these mysterious entities are, at first glance, presented merely as commercial firms. However, when the secret corporate charts and state ties in the report by the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS) are deciphered, a striking reality comes to light: we are not looking at free-market actors, but rather at Beijing’s remote-controlled shadow armies, whose management is entrusted to former commanders and whose oversight is tied directly to Communist Party cells. In the 5th part of our series, we lay bare the corporate codes, former intelligence executives, and the party-state monopoly hidden behind the “private” mask of this invisible long arm of the state.

The massive security industry protecting more than 1.2 million Chinese citizens and hundreds of billions of dollars in investments along the “Belt and Road” route is initially presented as a free-market actor. However, the corporate organizational charts in the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS) report reveal the flip side of the coin: former PLA commanders, intelligence-linked police chiefs, and secret CCP cells deployed inside the companies expose Beijing’s “privately” masked global law enforcement force.

The Cross-Border “Mask” of a 6.4-Million-Strong Sector

While private military companies in the Western world operate with a focus on commercial profit and contracts, Beijing has constructed a completely party-state-driven “Chinese model” (categorized as Class 2: Niche Source-Providing Companies in industry literature) to protect its national interests. According to data from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS), there are more than 16,000 security companies and over 6.4 million personnel within China. However, the FRS report dissects the anatomy of 57 approved elite firms meticulously selected from this massive pool and sent directly to global operations (Africa, Latin America, Central Asia). The result is clear: these structures do not operate on commercial market dynamics; they act directly as Beijing’s cross-border “long arm.”

Former PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Officers: Command Structure Straight from Military Headquarters

When the management boards of Chinese security firms are analyzed, the founders and top executives are, without exception, elite officers originating from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

• The Operational Brain of the Companies: The founding leaders of consortia highlighted in the report, such as giants HXZA (HuaXin ZhongAn) and COSG (China Overseas Security Group)—for instance, WANG Guobao and JIANG Xiaoming at the helm of COSG—are figures who have directly transplanted military discipline and the PLA’s operational doctrines into the private sector.
• This organic link ensures that during moments of crisis, the chain of command bypasses civil bureaucracy and connects directly to Beijing’s military headquarters. Thousands of soldiers retired from the military are employed in these shadow armies, turning them into a “uniformless military force” on African soil where Beijing cannot officially deploy its regular army.

Former Police Executives: From the “Central Guard Bureau” to the Field

The sector possesses not just a military angle, but a far more sensitive “public security and intelligence” pillar. The founding cadres of these companies include names drafted from the most critical units of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS).

• A Striking Example (VSS Security): ZHE Meijie, the founder of VSS Security Group—which today protects the Chinese state oil company CNPC in high-risk regions like Sudan, South Sudan, and Libya—is no ordinary police officer. He is a former police lieutenant colonel who served within the ultra-strategic Central Guard Bureau, which is directly tasked with protecting China’s top-tier party, government, and military leaders.
• From the Desk to the Congo Field: SUN Hongyu, the founder of another giant, Beijing Huayuan Security, also built his career within the Beijing Public Security bureaucracy before being appointed Vice Chairman of the China-Africa Private Chamber of Commerce. These figures build direct institutional bridges on behalf of the Chinese state with local police forces and intelligence units in Africa, bypassing local legal obstacles by utilizing “state-to-state” leverage.

State-Owned Enterprise Links: The Client and the Boss Are the Same “Party-State”

While Western private security companies compete for open tenders in the global market, the economic ecosystem of Chinese PSCs is a completely closed-circuit state monopoly.

• Billion-Dollar Projects: According to the charts in the report, the main clients of these companies are directly Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). For example, DeWe Security protects the massive $4 billion gas pipeline project between Ethiopia and Djibouti. Meanwhile, Cross Ocean Security (COS) secures the explosives facilities of Chinese defense industry giant NORINCO and the bauxite mines of the state-owned Chalco holding company in Guinea.
• The Financial Loop: The fact that the client is a state enterprise, the asset being protected is a state investment, and the securing company is under state control completely eliminates free-market logic. Frontier Services Group (FSG), the largest Class 3 player in the sector, is even more complex: though founded by Blackwater creator Erik Prince, its largest shareholder and partner is China’s state-owned mega-conglomerate, CITIC Group.

Party-State Relations: Internal “Secret Cells” and the Fear of Prigozhin

The most radical and rigid structure separating the Chinese model from Russia’s Wagner/Africa Corps model is the ideological oversight mechanism. Beijing is mortally afraid of a loss of control similar to Russia’s “Prigozhin Mutiny” or rogue paramilitary leaders.

• The Obligation of Party Cells: Under Chinese law, every company of a certain size operating domestically or sent overseas is mandated to establish an official CCP Party Cell within its ranks. If there is an operations chief at the head of a security team in the remotest mine in Africa, there sits a Party Commissar above them supervising ideological loyalty.
• Command and Control Under Politics: The commercial profit motive of these companies can never supersede the Communist Party’s foreign policy doctrines or diplomatic image concerns. As a matter of fact, the report emphasizes that the Chinese government strictly prohibits PSCs from risky military operations that could tarnish the state’s reputation or trigger a diplomatic crisis, keeping them within a strictly “defensive and controlled” boundary.

A “Remote-Controlled” Power, Not a “Private” One

As we have clearly demonstrated in this part of our series, although Chinese security companies appear to be joint-stock corporations masked by wordplay, they are essentially “remote-controlled state apparatuses” serving the CCP’s global hegemony goals. Led by leaders drafted from the military, fueled by billion-dollar budgets flowing from state enterprises, and kept under the absolute ideological whip of the party, these structures are the very definition of the new generation shadow armies with which Beijing is quietly encircling the world without officially sending troops.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Uniformless Encirclement

Dear Readers,

In the 5th part of our series, we examine how Beijing expands its global power without officially deploying soldiers. Chinese Private Security Companies, which protect billions of dollars in Belt and Road Initiative investments on the ground, are not independent commercial actors as claimed.

While the command structure of these entities consists directly of officers with Chinese People’s Liberation Army backgrounds, the intelligence and local coordination pillar is run by former executives of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. The financing of these companies is not sourced from the free market but is provided closed-circuit entirely through state-monopolized State-Owned Enterprises.

The Beijing administration exercises absolute political control over these firms due to its wariness of risks that uncontrolled forces might create. Accordingly, it has been made mandatory for every unit in operational fields to harbor official Party Cells. This ensures that all decisions are made under the direct control of the Chinese Communist Party.

Giants like Frontier Services Group, which grew through Western partnerships, alongside consortia like HXZA, COSG, and VSS Security, whose corporate networks are exposed in the report, are the most tangible examples of this hidden model. What stands before us are not commercial enterprises, but the reality of Beijing’s new-generation Uniformless Shadow Armies, managed by the state from budget to ideology.

Source & Investigation Report

The institutional charts, corporate networks, and state connections exposed in this article are based on the comprehensive strategic research report published by the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS).

• Report Title: Russia and Chinese private military and security companies in Africa: two competing models?
• Publication No & Date: N°03/2025 – March 2025
• Authors: Djenabou Cissé, Simon Menet, and Marie de Vries (Researchers and Assistants at the Foundation for Strategic Research)
• Publisher: FRS (Fondation pour la recherche stratégique – Paris, France)

East Turkestan Bulletin News Agency / NEWS CENTER