Maps, Flags, and Security in the Indo-Pacific: Reframing China's Influence in Africa

Maps with flags have securitized China's actions in Africa. This article combines spatial and cartographic analysis with securitization theory to test the role played by visual symbols in the securitization of the East African space and then compares this with on-the-ground realities. It finds that maps with flags have decisively securitized China's presence and actions in East Africa for state actors with antithetical interests. Despite valid security concerns, securitizing China in East Africa conflates presence with hegemony and, thus, willfully ignores the sovereignty and agency of African states and peoples and simplifies East Africa to a zone on the map of great power contestation.