What is China’s Global Security Initiative?

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From human rights to technology to trade, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using the growing weight of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) to reshape international institutions, rules, and norms to better suit its views and interests. The gap between the Chinese approach and that of free and open nations to international engagement has led to increasingly antagonistic contestation regarding which model will best foster future global prosperity.

Whilst development cooperation and accessible finance have formed the backbone of the PRC’s quest to boost its influence in less developed countries, Beijing’s foreign policy gaze has now been directed toward a different form of diplomatic endeavour.

The Global Security Initiative (GSI) (see Box 1) was first announced by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CCP, in April 2022 during a keynote speech at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference.¹ Thus far, it is a nebulous geostrategic offering that presents an alternative to the existing geopolitical order, which the CCP perceives as one dominated by liberal-democratic nations and thus skewed against its interests. Dong Chunling, Assistant Research Fellow at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, described the GSI as ‘a Chinese solution to jointly address increasingly complex and serious common global challenges’.²

Box 1: The GSI’s ‘core six commitments’³

Maintaining common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security;
Respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries;
Respecting the purposes and principles of the UN charter;
Peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries;
Maintaining security in traditional and non-traditional domains; and,
Upholding ‘indivisible security.’

The GSI was unveiled just six months after Xi proposed the Global Development Initiative (GDI) at the 76th United Nations (UN) General Assembly. Xi described the GDI as ‘an alternative model to achieve balanced, coordinated, and inclusive growth while achieving the UN’s 2030 sustainable development agenda.’⁴ The GSI and GDI can be understood as twin initiatives, signalling a repackaging of existing ideas and practices under a new duo of umbrella concepts.

Both initiatives are consistent with the current anti-American underpinnings of the CCP’s foreign policy. The CCP views the United States (US) as a declining power trying to contain the PRC’s rise and curb its influence globally, but particularly in East Asia, where many future economic powerhouses are situated as well as Taiwan – the most likely flashpoint between the two. CCP officials promote the notion that a hegemonic US (and its allies) are the root cause of the major challenges facing the world. The CCP is trying to make the case that it has the answers, or is at least offering something different to what it views as a failed US-led system, a key component of its broader goal of reshaping global governance structures and values to align with the PRC’s interests.

The GSI and GDI are products of this anti-Americanism, and the broader Chinese goal of carving out an international order better suited to the CCP, and can thus be seen as two faces of the same foreign policy coin. As such, references to the GDI will be made throughout this Explainer, but its focus remains the GSI as it is through this initiative that the CCP will attempt to set new geopolitical standards – with strategic consequences for the United Kingdom (UK).

The PRC’s new foreign policy initiatives and ‘indivisible security’

Much of the language from Chinese diplomats to accompany the unveiling of the GSI will not be revolutionary for observers of the PRC and its foreign policy lexicon. Concepts such as ‘respecting national sovereignty’, ‘non-interference’ and ‘dialogue and consultation’ are long standing principles of the PRC’s geopolitical discourse that are rooted in the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (see Box 2).⁵

Box 2: The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence

Mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty;
Mutual non-aggression;
Mutual non-interference in internal affairs;
Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit; and,
Peaceful co-existence.

The distinguishing principle of the PRC’s nascent security offering is that of Commitment 6 – ‘indivisible security’. Indivisible security was originally a European concept, first set out in the 1975 Helsinki Act, establishing ground rules for the interaction between the two Cold War rivals⁶ – the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact.⁷ It proposes that the security of any country is inseparable from others in the region and that no single nation’s security should come at the expense of another’s.

The concept has proved popular in the Kremlin, with indivisible security regularly invoked by Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, to criticise the enlargement of NATO as a pretext and excuse for his aggression against Ukraine since 2014.⁸ In a similar vein, Xi’s Boao speech was used to denounce American ‘Cold War mentality’ (冷战思维), hegemonism, and power politics, as dangers to world peace and the resolution of today’s security challenges. Both Putin and Xi believe they are compelled to take measures – albeit different in nature – to adhere to the principle of indivisible security.

The fact that the CCP has determined that indivisible security (with a helping of anti-Americanism) should be the conceptual underpinning of the GSI suggests that the resurgence of great power politics is here to stay. However, it is not yet clear how the GSI in its current form – long on principles and short on practical details – will be operationalised.

Both the GSI and GDI are anchor concepts that are likely to be fleshed out through substantive policies and partnerships in the coming months and years. The evolution of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) may be instructive in this respect. When announced by Xi in 2013, the BRI was a loose concept – a vague plan to develop two new trade routes connecting the PRC with the rest of the world. It was shaped by the responses and receptiveness to it from other countries and has been put in practice by a variety of actors and institutions to cement itself as Xi’s flagship foreign policy initiative.

The GSI is the more eye-catching initiative because it signals that the Chinese leadership feels confident enough in its position on the world stage to lay out its vision for the international order.

These nascent Chinese initiatives should not be dismissed as empty rhetoric; indeed, they should be observed attentively. To be sure, there is a case to be made that the GSI and GDI merely represent the CCP repackaging its existing foreign policy objectives with a new propaganda wrapping. However, given the PRC’s growing power and international reach, it is critical to scrutinise the CCP’s geostrategic objectives of these initiatives, how they are likely to evolve to best serve Chinese interests, and – crucially – how the UK should respond.

Belt and Road+ – Combining security and development?

Over the past decade, the BRI has been the CCP’s principal vehicle in projecting Chinese influence across less developed countries. The launch of the GSI and GDI represent an evolution in Beijing’s foreign policy beyond economic statecraft. The GDI differentiates itself from the BRI in that it is underpinned by ‘sustainable development’, with Beijing offering to assist developing nations in poverty alleviation and contributions towards global sustainable development goals.⁹

The GSI is the more eye-catching initiative because it signals that the Chinese leadership feels confident enough in its position on the world stage to lay out its vision for the international order. In the past, when discussing the resolution of global security issues, Chinese officials had been eager to stress that providing prosperity to less-developed regions is the precursor to a more secure global environment for all.

‘Comprehensive security’ in domestic and international relations has become a fixation of the CCP since Xi assumed power in 2012. Security is seen as a critical component in upholding the party’s core interest: the survival of its Leninist-Maoist power monopoly and socialism with Chinese characteristics.¹⁰ As early as April 2014, Xi presented his concept of ‘big security’ (大安全), in which domestic and international security were earmarked as being inseparably linked.

Chinese officials and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have recognised since the inception of the BRI that security challenges are created by globally expanding national interests and entanglements. As it has expanded both geographically and sectorally, the CCP has used the BRI to push the boundaries of the PRC’s national interests well beyond the traditional focus on the country’s immediate neighbourhood.

The GSI represents a formalised approach to securitising the PRC’s international development objectives. Rather than marking the end point for Chinese infrastructure investment (which has been on the wane since 2020),¹¹ the GSI is likely to coexist with the BRI (and now GDI) as part of a broader geopolitical package to burnish the PRC’s global governance credentials and address the perceived inadequacies of the prevailing open international order.

Of course, for the CCP, economic interests remain at play. An enlarged network of security partners can help to better protect an estimated US$59.5 billion (£55.7 billion) of BRI investments.¹² ¹³ More specifically, the PRC has a string of investments that stretch along the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea: some US$33.9 billion (£31.7 billion) worth of Chinese loans have flooded the Horn of Africa region alone since 2000.¹⁴ It is no surprise that the PRC has prioritised this region in its early GSI promotion.

Peace and stability are crucial to the success of the PRC’s international investments and the protection of Chinese nationals abroad. But the GSI, as a geopolitical ordering concept, goes beyond safeguarding Chinese assets. Beijing is attempting to show that the PRC has practical answers to the most pressing geopolitical challenges facing the world today.

Why now? The geopolitical context

Rather than purely reflecting the CCP’s confidence and ambitious global outreach, the GSI is also a manifestation of the party’s threat perceptions and elevated concern over the current state of the PRC’s international reputation. Beijing sees this as a particularly fraught moment, feeling that a US-led coalition of free and open countries are coalescing to halt its rise.

The CCP has chosen this moment to formalise its geostrategic agenda for four key reasons, relating to opportunities, threats, its image and values.

Opportunities

Xi delivered the Boao speech a matter of weeks after Russia renewed its widely condemned offensive against Ukraine. After opting not to mediate in the resulting crisis, the CCP has instrumentalised the situation to replace what it views as an unfair US-dominated international order with an alternative vision. The global turmoil – in terms of food and energy – caused by Russia’s renewed aggression against Ukraine has also created a clear gap between how democracies and many less developed countries view the war.¹⁵ Beijing is seeking to capitalise on this: Chinese policymakers feel that whilst the UK, Europe and the US are preoccupied with geopolitical concerns in the Euro-Atlantic, a window of opportunity has emerged to tout the GSI as a vehicle to ensure the stability needed for economic recovery and development.

Threats

The Chinese government is increasingly concerned by the potential formation of some form of ‘Indo-Pacific NATO’, as well as the new regional strategies by the US, UK and European Union (EU). The CCP perceives initiatives such as the trilateral technology sharing partnership between Australia, the UK and the US (AUKUS), and security initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), in which the US, Japan, India and Australia participate, as hostile provocations from free and open nations in its own backyard. The feeling that the current global order is geared toward US hegemony and that the world’s greatest power is doing all it can to suppress and encircle the PRC has only grown stronger as the US Government has moved to shore up American allies.¹⁶ By securing support for the GSI, Beijing believes it can weaken attempts by an ‘anti-China coalition’ (反华联盟) to contain its rise.

Image

As with the BRI, the GSI is not solely targeted at less developed countries which may be sceptical of the existing global geopolitical landscape. It serves to rehabilitate the PRC’s reputation in the eyes of nations that have been critical of its lack of meaningful response to Russia’s renewed assault on Ukraine, and counter the growing ‘China threat’ narrative that is being amplified by free and open nations. Whilst the initiative was in the works before February 2022, the timing and urgency of its announcement can be linked to the war and the damage to the PRC’s international reputation due to its tacit support for Russia.¹⁷ Beijing will continue to use foreign policy to pursue its own national interests and the GSI can help enhance its image of acting as a benign superpower that observes the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

Values

Nascent foreign policy initiatives like the GSI and GDI are part of an ongoing effort by the CCP to delegitimise the US by pointing the finger at the US-led world order for being the cause of major global problems. For example, rather than blaming Russia – the aggressor – for Ukraine’s plight, Wang Yi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, pointed to ‘Cold War mentality’ (冷战思维), inferring that the US bore responsibility for Russia’s actions.¹⁸ Steadfast in its belief that the PRC is witnessing its own rise and the decline of the US and its allies, Beijing continues to vocally criticise the open international order, while suggesting that Chinese values and structures are more suitable for addressing today’s strategic challenges.¹⁹ This growing confidence is fanned by nationalist fervour and anti-Americanism.

Can the GSI work in practice?

As of September 2022, the GSI is conspicuously lacking in substantive policies. However, the PRC is using a number of groups and platforms – and is proactively reinforcing them – to provide genuine alternatives to US-led international institutions.

For example, Xi championed the initiative through multilateral fora such as the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) summit in June, at which he called upon participating countries to embrace a more equitable form of international order. More recently, at the 22nd meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on the 16th September, it was reported that Xi underlined the need to ‘expand security cooperation’ between all members and welcomed them ‘to get involved in implementing the Global Security Initiative’.²⁰ In Africa, Chinese diplomats have begun attaching the GSI label to existing cooperation agreements, including the China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035 – announced by Xi last November – and the Outlook on Peace and Development in the Horn of Africa.²¹ As the PRC extends its reach in the South Pacific, Chinese officials have linked the initiative to the bilateral security agreement it signed with the Solomon Islands.

The GDI, by comparison, has started to produce more concrete financial commitments to regional development funds. Xi pledged an additional US$1 billion (£0.94 billion) on top of US$3 billion (£2.8 billion) already committed to the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund, which he then went on to rename the ‘Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund’.²² The GDI has also been earmarked as the vehicle through which the PRC will increase its input to the UN Peace and Development Trust Fund. With the GSI roughly six months behind the GDI in its development, more substantial commitments and offerings made under the GSI banner may materialise by the end of the year.

There has, however, been a marked shift in tone towards more proactive engagement on international security. At the first-ever China-Horn of Africa Peace Conference in June, Xue Bing, the Chinese Special Envoy for Horn of Africa Affairs, suggested that the PRC is prepared to work with counterparts through ‘consultation and interaction over interference’ to solve conflict across the region.²³ The very fact that the PRC was able to host this conference about its international security vision has been cited as an early achievement of the GSI in itself.²⁴

At the peace conference, Xue offered to personally mediate disputes between the region’s nations. While Beijing has previously been involved in ‘backseat’ conflict mediation in countries such as Sudan, personal conflict mediation would signal a much more hands-on approach to international conflict resolution.²⁵ Many of the PRC’s security partnerships with developing countries have been relatively unstructured and determined on a country-by-country basis – the PRC’s overtures at the Horn of Africa peace conference suggest that more formal agreements may be on the way.

Questions remain over whether the PRC will be able to truly stay out of other countries’ internal affairs and whether it can reconcile its preference for non-military means with the need to secure and protect its interests and citizens. The PLA’s permanent overseas support facility in Djibouti – opened in 2017 – indicates that the CCP is willing to deviate from its claim that the PRC ‘does not station any troops or set up any military bases in any foreign country’ as a matter of policy.²⁶ However, the GSI does not appear to represent an attempt to challenge the US as the world’s premier security provider, a role which the PRC lacks the expertise and capabilities to assume.

How will the GSI be received?

Russia has already signalled its approval towards the GSI.²⁷ For now, the CCP’s primary audience is less developed nations.

As with the BRI, the GSI is likely to be generally well received in Africa and Latin America. The PRC has a number of existing security agreements with African nations based on the principle of non-interference: pooling resources and structures could be seen by some African nations as an opportunity to have greater sway in global economics and politics.²⁸ Countries such as Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, and Nigeria have been receptive to the PRC’s offers to boost security ties through military training, intelligence sharing and counterterrorism efforts.²⁹ Latin American and Caribbean countries will likely take more time to coordinate their involvement with the GSI, but the foreign ministers of both Nicaragua and Uruguay have expressed early support for the initiative.³⁰

Neighbouring South and Southeast Asia will be a tougher crowd to please. There remains considerable anxiety in neighbouring countries – especially the Philippines and Vietnam – about the PRC’s rise and intentions for the Indo-Pacific. The PRC’s territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea and its increasingly bellicose behaviour towards Taiwan are seen by some adjacent countries as antithetical to the GSI’s fundamental principle of indivisible security.³¹ These nations will be inclined to resist any further integration into a PRC-dominated sphere should the CCP refuse to come to the table on maritime border disputes and the hoarding of South China Sea resources. The PRC needs India – a nuclear state and rising superpower – on board to give the GSI true global clout. Continuing border disputes render India’s immediate buy-in unlikely, although New Delhi has hinted it is prepared to entertain discussions about participation.³²

As part of the move to soften its image in free and open countries, Beijing will also try to secure GSI buy-in from European states, including the UK. Chinese officials have argued that the GSI could address key European security conundrums – such as Cyprus’s partition – but negative views of the PRC’s role as a responsible global power remain at near historic highs as a result of the CCP’s unerringly confrontational ‘Wolf Warrior’ diplomacy and Chinese posturing over Russia’s renewed assault against Ukraine (the CCP also lacks the knowledge and resources to engage in such prickly diplomatic endeavours).³³ In its latest strategic concept, NATO designated the PRC as a ‘vital security challenge’ for the first time.³⁴

On a broader level, Beijing recognises that certain features of its overseas engagement have come under fire in recipient nations. Opacity around BRI loans and a lack of due diligence has left a number of Chinese-backed projects floundering and recipient countries saddled with unmanageable levels of debt.³⁵ New foreign policy initiatives will have to come with substantive, trustable offerings in areas such as poverty alleviation and climate change capacity building that do not carry such severe financial risks.

Conclusion and recommendations

In the Integrated Review, His Majesty’s (HM) Government committed to deeper geopolitical and geoeconomic engagement with the Indo-Pacific region.³⁶ While it may not appear obvious that the GSI has direct or immediate geostrategic consequences for the UK, HM Government’s intention to be ‘the European partner with the broadest and most integrated presence in the Indo-Pacific’ could be jeopardised should the PRC manage to use the GSI and GDI to expand Chinese influence in the region and indeed more broadly.

Insofar as HM Government plans to actively shape the international order of the future, the UK can take several steps to respond to the PRC’s fledgling security proposal:

Monitor the GSI: Given that Britain has labelled the PRC as a ‘systemic competitor’³⁷ in the Integrated Review and that Chinese officials have been in overdrive to promote the GSI as a legitimate geopolitical ordering system, HM Government, aided by British civil society, should actively monitor the Chinese initiative. If endorsed at the CCP’s 20th Party Congress in October 2022, it is clear that Beijing believes that the GSI is on track to become a viable alternative to the open international order. As the initiative is ambiguous and light on details, policymakers should stay on top of new agreements and policy proposals from the PRC that operationalise the CCP’s vision, without overdignifying the GSI. HM Government and British strategic thinkers should start by amplifying the message – in concert with like-minded partners – that ‘indivisible security’ is being misused by the PRC and Russia as a pretext to hide their expansionist geopolitical ambitions.

Bolster cooperation with allies and partners: Partnerships are power. Alongside playing a leading role in NATO and the Group of Seven (G7) to align British security imperatives with like-minded countries, HM Government should use multilateral, plurilateral and bilateral relationships to promote peaceful solutions to security crises and conflicts around the world. Plurilateral security partnerships, in the same mould as AUKUS or the trilateral with Poland and Ukraine, can enable Britain to expand its strategic cooperation with partners in key areas such as emerging technology and standards-setting. The UK’s major allies accept that systemic rivalry with the PRC is not going to subside for the foreseeable future. HM Government should coordinate a united international position to any concrete measures that infringe on British interests or that of its allies and partners pursued under the GSI banner to ensure a repeat of the reactive, uncoordinated response to the expansion of the BRI is avoided.

Build and rebuild selective partnerships: Policymakers in free and open countries often lecture against Chinese influence in less developed nations without factoring in what local governments and populations want. HM Government should be addressing specific security and development demands of key regional partners, and align this with a realistic assessment of the resources at its disposal. This can come by boosting diplomatic and trade ties through participation in new multilateral initiatives, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as bilateral engagement on security-specific issues. In Africa, steep cuts to foreign aid should be balanced by support for core issues such as climate change and poverty reduction. The egg has to come with the yolk: the Britain International Investment company should be reviewed and refocused to ensure it is reaching its stated aim of ‘deepening economic, security and development ties globally’.³⁸

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Archie Brown for carrying out background research for this paper, as well as Ovigwe Eguegu and the team at Development Reimagined for providing key updates on the GSI. My gratitude is also extended to Patrick Triglavcanin, James Rogers and Charles Parton for their invaluable feedback and support.

About the author

Chris Cash is the Research Lead at the UK parliamentary China Research Group. He previously worked for the British Council in Hangzhou, China. He holds an MSc in China and Globalisation from the Lau China Institute at King’s College London and an MA in Modern History from the University of St Andrews.

Disclaimer

This publication should not be considered in any way to constitute advice. It is for knowledge and educational purposes only. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Council on Geostrategy or the views of its Advisory Council.

No. GPE08 | ISBN: 978-1-914441-27-1

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Ibid.
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37
Liz Truss, the new British Prime Minister, has reportedly ordered an update to the Integrated Review. It has been rumoured that the PRC may be redesignated as a ‘threat’, rather than a ‘systemic competitor’.
38
‘Truss revamps British development finance institution to deliver jobs and clean growth’, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, 24/11/2021, https://bit.ly/3BIFvQe (checked: 28/09/2022).