It’s too early to tell what the significance of China’s Global Security Initiative will mean for the country and the world.
But this announcement signals a continued interest in being a leader in global governance and security, according to a panel of experts on Sino-U.S. affairs. China President Xi Jinping proposed a GSI at the annual Boao Summit in April. Xi was light on details, leaving analysts to sift through the tea leaves to offer informed guesses on what this all means.
The Center for Strategic and International Affairs hosted a discussion on the GSI on July 14. The panel included Manoj Kewalramani, chair of the Indo-Pacific Research Programme at the Takshashila Institution, Sheena Chestnut Greitens, an associate professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, and M. Taylor Fravel, the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science at MIT and director of the MIT Security Studies Program.
Manoj Kewalramani
| Center for Strategic and International Affairs
Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS, served as the moderator.
Kewalramani said he sees it through three prisms.
“The first was a threat prism, which I think is very clearly pronounced. And, most Xi Jinping's speeches today on the international situation begin with this sense of foreboding about how the international environment has changed and how it's become far more challenging,” he said. “And that's why when you look at how he's framed GSI also, he's framed it largely in opposition to what he sees as this Western-led international order, which was set up after the Second World War. So that's the sort of first prism that came to mind.
“The second prism that comes to my mind is a sense of opportunity. Again, with most things in China, there's a threat and there's an opportunity,” Kewalramani said. “There's insecurity and there is hubris. Those coexist. And I think that there is that sense of opportunity which comes across the readings and Xi Jinping's comments, not just around GSI, but otherwise, also. There is the sense that the West is in potentially terminal decline and the East is rising. The sense is that there is this profound shift that's taking place in the balance of power.
“And China, despite all the threats that are accumulating, is still in a period of strategic opportunities,” he said. “You know, what makes it possible for him to do this, in his view, seems to be the idea that there is tremendous material strength that has been accumulated. China's size, its economy, its engagement with the world, makes it an indispensable partner.”
Kewalramani said this creates an opportunity for new equations and new relationships, particularly with large parts of the developing world, and an offer to reshape the international order while the West is in decline.
And the third prism that I look at this from as a moral prism, and I think some of the readings makes it quite clear that there is a certain moral argument, which I think is being used not just externally to make the case to the rest of the world, but to the developing world and emerging economies,” he said.
Greitens said there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
“But I do think it has the potential to be a pretty significant initiative on the part of the Chinese party state to significantly revise global governance,” she said. “And so I think it's important to put the Global Security Initiative in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative and the Global Data Security Initiative. Not all of these have gotten equal traction in the international community. But I do think it's important to note that the Global Security Initiative itself is part of a larger whole or a larger package of initiatives in Chinese foreign policy.”
Greitens said she is sure of one thing: “All of us who are observing China from around the world should be watching pretty closely.”
Fravel noted the mention of GSI was “really only a paragraph,” a bullet point that has six subpoints. The lead point was first mentioned in 2014.
Blanchette described the six points as a commitment to a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative, sustainable security; respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries; remain committed to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter; commitment to the legitimate security concerns of all countries and uphold the principle of indivisible security; resolve disputes through discussion and dialog; and security in both the traditional and the nontraditional domains.
Fravel said this is “the repackaging primarily of existing views of principles by which international affairs should be conducted,” now labeled the Global Security Initiative.
“But one element that struck me as somewhat new was the inclusion of this idea of indivisible security, which principally comes from Russia,” he said. “And I could really not find many Ministry of Foreign Affairs references to indivisible security in previous documents. But on the whole, many of the other elements are not new and individually. And so what is interesting is how they're being packaged.”
Fravel said he is taking a cautious, wait-and-see approach.
Blanchette said he wonders about the various audiences for GSI, their reaction, and how that will guide China.
“Is it the 'New Coke' of security ideas, in which case there ain't no buyers for it? And, you know, John Pomfret calls China the land of soft openings,” he said. “Is it just yet another slogan, which has six months of runway and then peters out, just to continue mixing my metaphors?”
Fravel said China seems to have targeted a certain area with this concept.
“I think the Global South, broadly defined, is the major audience for this. I don't think this is going to resonate much in Europe in the way in which China might hope. But I think it might resonate elsewhere,” he said. “And I think because China has essentially alienated Europe over the past 18 months, including its support for Russia in the invasion, Chinese diplomacy now really has to focus on the Global South even more than before if it wants to effectively kind of counterbalance against the United States.”
The Global South is defined as Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania.
Greitens, while agreeing that it is too early to draw firm conclusions, said she is intrigued by analysts who see GSI as the external manifestation
“The comprehensive national security concept is fundamentally a political security concept about the security of the CCP,” she said. “But what Xi Jinping has defined as the sort of the heart's blood and the foundation of national security is political security, which is in turn defined as the security of China's socialist system and the leadership of the CCP and the leadership in particular of the Communist Party Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core.”
Greitens said she has spent a long time studying how leaders of non-democracies perceive security — and it doesn't always correlate with objective security very well. She has examined Taiwan, South Korea and Philippines, all non-communist systems, as well as China and North Korea and other communist non-democracies, for her book “Dictators and their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence.”
“And if the claim here is that the Chinese leadership not only has to be objectively politically secure in its hold on power, but has to feel secure,” she said. “We're going to have some bumpy moments because most autocracies inherently seem to feel insecure.”
Kewalramani said Chinese has recently pledged to cooperate with other countries on issues such as poverty reduction, food security, health security, development, finance, climate change, digital connectivity and other matters. That has been welcomed.
“In terms of beyond that, in terms of the argument of delegitimizing the West, I think that you will see far more caution,” he said. “And I think that's where there will be actors who may be far more comfortable with that, but there will also be actors who will see that dynamic as being pushed into choosing sides. You know, if Asian countries don't want to choose sides, when the United States is asking them to choose, they wouldn't want to choose sides even when Beijing is asking them to. They essentially want to make sure that their interests are met.”
Blanchette asked if a new era of U.S.-China-Russia relationships was dawning. Or is the China-Russia relationship a marriage of convenience?
The experts said there may be increased joint exercises and pronouncements, but the real impact may be a unified effort at the United Nations. But Russia is preoccupied now with the war with Ukraine, they said, preventing serious engagement with China.
In addition, China has to explain how it can claim respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, the UN Charter and indivisible security while endorsing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Blanchette said this bears close scrutiny and will for some time.
“I think a core consensus … we can't come to any firm conclusions,” he said. “We're seeing sort of some initial movement in some directions, but you don't know if that's just a stutter step or if that's a stride in any new direction.”
