Every Chinese leadership since the time of Mao Zedong has come up with its own foreign policy conceptualization after conducting a thorough stock-taking of the existing international security situation. This year, in April 22, in the backdrop of escalating Russia-Ukraine conflict and continuing menace of Covid-19 pandemic, Xi Jinping put forward a Global Security Initiative (GSI) which is basically a framework for achieving global peace. But the interesting part is while he championed for global peace, he also spelt out the need for making Asia “the anchor for world peace, a powerhouse for global growth and a new pacesetter for international cooperation.” This is also reminiscent of a similar proposition made at the CICA Shanghai Summit of May 2014 where Xi for the first time proposed a New Asian Security Concept and called for creating an Asian security Forum for the Asians alone. Arguably, in all his speeches and foreign policy positions, the singular feature that dominates is anti-US rhetoric and the need for global cooperation in thwarting US hegemonism. In other words, the existence of the US as the principal enemy is the necessary criterion for China’s formulation of foreign policy.
Moreover, the conceptualisation of GSI follows his earlier visions of national security about which he had himself penned in an article for Xinhua on November 15, 2013. In it, he wrote that China faced ‘double pressure’, one from the outside and the other from the home front. Painting a grim security scenario, his article served as the backgrounder for the formation of the Central National Security Commission (CNSC) in January 2014 and conceptualization of Comprehensive National Security (CNS) in April of the same year. There is thus, not only a regular assessment on the prevailing global security situation, but more significantly, in all the security assessments there is a predominant emphasis on threat perceptions. This is most vivid in Xi Jinping’s categorisation of the types of security in the CNS concept.
Originally, the CNS had mentions of 11 types of security which was later expanded to 16, thus scornfully dubbed as “securitization of everything” – political, military, homeland security, economic, cultural, social, technological, cyberspace, ecological, resource, nuclear, overseas interests, outer space, deep sea, polar, and biological security. This obsession about securitising everything also suggests deep insecurity that the party suffers from. Further, Xi has assigned hierarchy of security types with political security, that is, safeguarding China’s party state, acquired the highest priority. This mind boggling and micro analysis of the security environment raises questions about the rationale for such an assessment of security.
Of course, resisting and marginalizing the US has been a primary objective of China and a long term goal since the time of Mao. There is also nothing uncommon about countries framing their foreign policies premised on the external security environment and for the purposes of preservation of national security and promotion of national interests. But when China takes stock of the external security situation, its overwhelming focus is on the nature of the threat. That explains why it categorises security into 16 broad types. Plus, it measures the intensity of the security type to come up with appropriate strategies to respond to them. That China assigns political security as the number one security concern, suggests that it has the greatest threat perceptions emanating from the domestic arena. No wonder therefore, the People’s Armed Police (PAP), a paramilitary force designed for stability maintenance and internal security, has emerged to become the dominant player today in the national security arena. So much so that in 2018, it was brought under the full authority of the Central Military Commission, the highest military organ of China. Earlier, it was under the dual control of the Ministry of Public Security and the CMC. As regards the budgetary allocations, there have been reports of China spending more on the PAP than on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Further, in Chinese memory and threat perceptions, the fall of the Soviet Union is considered most catastrophic. Because the Soviet collapse was internally induced, not externally driven. Also, a reading of its imperial history suggests that most dynasties were brought down by internal rebellion and domestic unrest rather than foreign invasions. So, internal threat perceptions are deeply embedded in the Chinese psyche.
For China, thus, the domestic arena serves as the primary referent for formulating national security policy. This is all the more true for authoritarian countries like China whose legitimacy and authority do not emanate from democratic elections but from economic performance which is the only path for ensuring domestic prosperity and well-being of the masses. But when Xi Jinping became the president of China, he confronted shrill cries of deglobalization and protectionism rising from the West that critically hurt its developmental goals. Plus, at this time, there was also rising US’ trade war against China. All this was perceived by the Chinese leadership as sure signs of the West conspiring to derail China’s path to global power. The onset of Covid-19 pandemics further vitiated the prospects of global trade and investment opportunities. Countries across the world called for decoupling from China and diversifying the supply chains. And finally, came the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24th February that spelt a doom for global peace and development. All this amounted to shaking Chinese Communist authority because the crux of Chinese problems was just one: shrinking economic developmental prospects that spells doom for party legitimacy.
It is in this context, Xi Jinping proposed the GSI. And the preeminent theme that dots his speeches on the promotion of GSI in several world fora, such as the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit meeting in September, is that the Western world and primarily the US has ganged up against China and conspired to derail its rise. Therefore, domestically, Xi Jinping has responded to this crisis by tightening his grip on the party, which means ideology has returned into the Communist body polity. Notably, the function of ideology is to keep the enemy alive. The presence of the enemy, the ‘other’, is the only path to sustain the self.
Perpetuating the image of a conspiratorial West is, thus, vital for sustenance of the CCP. This suggests threat perceptions are the basis for Chinese foreign policy formulation. And when threat is the primary referent, insecurity is a natural outcome. And this insecurity pushes China into adopting a collision course in the international arena. This is buttressed in Xi Jinping’s GSI proposal where the three-pronged steps to make Asia an anchor for world peace actually ends up in bifurcating the world into Asia and non-Asia. In sum, Xi Jinping’s GSI is neither a recipe for promotion of global peace nor it has elements for the creation of an alternative global security architecture. The GSI is then meant for Chinese domestic consumption to shore up Xi’s domestic standing in the run up to the 20th Party Congress beginning this October16th.
Abanti Bhattacharya is a professor in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi.