25 May 2022, NIICE Commentary 7961
Jayshree Borah

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new security architecture “Global Security Initiative” at the annual Boao forum. While the international community is trying to dissect the meaning of the new initiative, it is to mention that a security initiative coming from China, as well as Xi Jinping, is not new. Beijing’s attempt to create a new security architecture dates back to Jiang Zemin. In 2002, the Chinese foreign ministry published a position paper on the New Security Concept, the first of its kind. The New Security Concept, which also laid out a comprehensive 21st-century security strategy for a potentially multipolar world order, is argued as China’s response to then-existing global issues, such as humanitarian crises. Borrowing Deng’s idea of establishing domestic security through development, the National Security Commission (NSC) prompted the country’s leaders to employ the same principles in their foreign policy. Xi’s new initiative also speaks of the same. The NSC was motivated by China’s dissatisfaction with NATO, as a security alliance, as the Global Security Initiative. New Security Concept was based on confidence, reciprocal benefits, equality, and collaboration. Xi’s Global Security Initiative shares the same slogans. Building trust through dialogue and fostering security through cooperation, the underlying message of the current Global Security Initiative is also nothing new as the NSC holds a similar concept. Apart from the NSC, China’s latest endeavor to build a regional security architecture  to suit its needs was the announcement of the New Asian Security Concept (NASC). President Xi Jinping unveiled the “New Asian Security Concept” (NASC) during the Shanghai Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in  Asia (CICA) in 2014. The main component of the NASC is consisting of four security dimensions for Asia- “common security, comprehensive security, cooperative security, and sustainable security.” The genesis of the four-security concept is built on “mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and coordination.”  Then why the sudden urge to announce a new initiative?

Global Security Initiative: What’s New?

Fostering the whole idea of China as a “benevolent power” never goes old for Beijing. Thus, periodically hyping with mega initiatives, which are mostly vague in nature keeps Beijing at the forefront of the debate. To quote Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, “China will never claim hegemony, seek expansion or spheres of influence, nor engage in an arms race.” The new Global Security initiative has the same agenda of making China’s presence more prominent politically and diplomatically in a more institutionalized manner in the global security order. With the Ukraine War and Pandemic rodent home, Xi faces trouble both at home and abroad. Announcement of these kinds of mega initiatives also serves the purpose of legitimizing Xi’s leadership domestically if not globally.

However, in comparison to Beijing’s earlier initiatives such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the China-Africa defense and security forum under the auspices of the Forum on China-Africa cooperation, which was pre-dominantly regional in nature and motivated by the intention of casting China as a regional security provider, the new global security initiative seems to be more articulated and ambitious in its approach. China led security-centric norms in its earlier conceptualizations, focused more on dialogue, and economic cooperation, linking security with development. While developmental security, a Chinese conception of security based on economic development is still one of the core principles of GSI, the GSI also extends itself to other areas. It is significant to note that, GSI is the political counterpart of the Global Development Initiative (GDI) which was announced in 2021 to provide economic support and strengthen the domestic development of countries, especially in the global south. GDI is already endorsed by more than 100 countries. GSI meanwhile, also brought out the concept of “indivisible security”. “Indivisible security” counters confrontation and military alliances, as it believes that US and European military blocs strengthen their security by jeopardizing the security of other countries. The GSI as noted by Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng aims to bring a Chinese perspective of multilateralism to the international security order. The Chinese version of multilateralism also works as a metaphor for bringing China-friendly countries under the same umbrella. Xi’s six points on GSI also noted that GSI follows the UN charter. Thus, GSI serves the purpose of Beijing’s articulation of a China-centric multilateral order, which has been a dominating thought of the Chinese foreign policy circle for a while now.

Another area GSI brought more focus than Beijing’s earlier initiatives is its opposition to unilateral sanctions. Many countries that are crippled by Western sanctions might muse with GSI and endorse Beijing’s criticism of unilateral sanctions. The specific mention of anti-sanctions as one of the principles of GSI, also shows how Beijing was affected by the sanctions Russia has faced in the aftermath of the Ukraine Crisis. The international community, especially the US has often commented that China will face similar consequences if China uses forces on Taiwan.

While in its earlier security initiatives China was only concerned about military blocs, the changing geopolitics in the last two years, especially with the formation of multilateral alliances in the Indo-pacific, Quad, and AUKUs has made China uncomfortable quite a great deal. Chinese Vice Minister Le Yucheng at the Global Think Tanks dialogue of 20 countries, commented US’s Indo-pacific strategy as an “exclusive grouping against China” to counter China’s influence in its neighborhood. GSI also is a counter-response to US lead multilateral groupings.  Thus, GSI seemed to be an extended version of Beijing’s earlier security initiatives that suits the current geopolitical situation. It will not bring any drastic change to China’s policies toward international security.

Jayshree Borah is an Independent Consultant and was a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Foreign Languages (Chinese Division) Humanities and Social Sciences, Tezpur University, India.