China’s New Vision for Security – and What It Means for the World

As someone who works a lot on China and its inner workings, I’ve been following the mood music especially carefully since Trump’s election - and over the last few months as the US President has single-handedly destabilised the world order.

Some of my more bullish US colleagues, contacts and friends think that will bring benefits to the US. Time will tell whether they are right; but seeing how others are preparing for today and tomorrow is even more important than normal.

I’ve spent the last few days studying a new policy document that was released earlier this month by China’s State Council Information Office.

This is a white paper - a detailed overview that helps provide an idea about current thinking. Like all policy documents (and primary sources), what is included in such a report and what is left out is important, as is understanding its audience, reception and authorship.

State Council Information Office does not release many of these each year - perhaps half a dozen - so they provide invaluable insights, as well as important ideas about what the leadership are willing to share with the outside world.

This new paper, titled “China’s National Security in the New Era” (新时代的中国国家安全), this is not merely a reflection of Beijing’s domestic priorities, but a blueprint for how China understands – and intends to shape – the international order. In time, it may come to be seen as one of the most consequential policy documents of the decade.

A short summary in translation has been posted on the English language version of the State Council Information Office. That does not usually happen - which shows that the high-ups in Beijing are signalling its importance too.

The white paper does not speak softly. Nor does it hide behind platitudes. It begins by anchoring China’s national security to the very ‘leadership of the Communist Party of China’ and the ‘guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.’ National security, in this framing, is not a discrete policy portfolio – it is a unifying principle across every domain of governance.

‘Security is the prerequisite for development, and development is the guarantee of security.’

This equation, repeated throughout the document, reveals a core theme: that China sees its continued rise not as a potential disruption to global order, but as essential to its preservation. However, the security in question is not defined narrowly. China’s approach is a ‘holistic view of national security’ (总体国家安全观). That means thinking about everything from cyber risks to grain supply chains, from ideology and culture to outer space.

Many in the west think China’s challenges for the future are about the transition of the economy, about tariffs and trade wars, or about demographics. To paraphrase a famous American catchphrase, for Beijing, the story is a simple one: it’s security, stupid.

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China’s national security, says the report has ‘entered a new stage where risks are high, challenges are numerous, and struggles are intense.’ This sense of vulnerability is not new; what is is the confidence with which China sets out its solutions. The white paper lists 16 key security domains.

These are:

• Political security (政权安全)

• Territorial integrity

• Military and defence

• Economic security

• Cultural and ideological security

• Social stability

• Science and technology (including AI and quantum)

• Cybersecurity and information control

• Biosecurity

• Space and deep-sea security

• Resource and energy security

• Nuclear security

• Ecological and environmental security

• Overseas interests

• Polar regions

• National security capacity-building

As ever, China’s approach is historical – and heavily framed around the trauma of foreign domination and internal collapse. The document refers to the ‘century of national humiliation’ (百年国耻) of the past, when ‘the country was poor and weak, and the people suffered from invasion and war.’ Now, it argues in a formulation that is used regularly, ‘China has grown from standing up to becoming prosperous and strong.’ National security, then, is both shield and sword: protecting against external coercion and ensuring internal unity.

That logic also explains the white paper’s emphasis on ideological control. One of its starkest lines warns:

‘We must never allow subversive rhetoric and actions to challenge the authority of the Party and the socialist system.’

For China’s leadership, preserving power and ensuring stability are two sides of the same coin. Any attack on the Party’s legitimacy is, by definition, a threat to national security. That framing carries profound implications, both domestically and internationally.

There is one phrase that stands out more than any other in this white paper: the Global Security Initiative (全球安全倡议).

Introduced by Xi Jinping in 2022, it is now formally embedded in China’s national strategy. The Initiative, according to the white paper, ‘offers Chinese solutions to international security challenges,’ and, says the authors, is based on six principles, including:

• Respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries

• Upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter

• Taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously

On the surface, these sound unobjectionable; but the implications are deep: in promoting the GSI, Beijing is offering an alternative to U.S led security alliances. It is arguing for a world where power is more diffuse, more multipolar, and more resistant to what Chinese leaders often call ‘hegemonism’ (霸权主义)

‘We oppose bloc confrontation and Cold War mentalities,’ the white paper says. ‘We support dialogue, not confrontation; partnership, not alliance.’

Yet, of course, China is itself forging deep ties – with Russia, with Iran, with countries across Africa, the Gulf, and in Latin America. It is investing in strategic ports and critical infrastructure from Gwadar to Djibouti. What differentiates China’s pitch is not that it lacks ambition, but that it is cloaked in the language of neutrality, peace, and win-win cooperation.

This is why the white paper is so important. It does not simply lay out threats, but proposes a Chinese-led architecture to address them. It outlines the desire to ‘participate actively in reforming and developing the global governance system,’ to ‘promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind’ – and to do so, unmistakably, under China’s ideological and political framework.

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The timing of the document is not incidental. It comes at a moment when the international system is fragmented and fatigued. The war in Ukraine drags on; the U.S is on a journey that enthuses a few, but baffles many, with a President who attacks elite universities, slashes budgets at home and abroad, proposes tax cuts and looks to start spats not only with rivals, but with allies and neighbours.

Europe is struggling to redefine its purpose relative to other parts of the world, and perhaps even as a socio-economic and political bloc: it is tempting to be enthusiastic about the noises of reform, defence spending, adoption of new technologies and more. But the fact the EU, the UK and Europe more widely are facing existential challenges shows how taking things for granted, inertia and being asleep at the wheel had become the norm.

The Global South, meanwhile, is seeking alternatives – both to Western conditionality and to the binary logic of East vs West.

Into this vacuum steps China.

What the white paper offers is not just a policy but a proposition: that security, like development, can be globalised under Chinese leadership. This is not necessarily about military bases or alliances (although those are growing too) but about ideas, networks, and values. The emphasis on cybersecurity, biosecurity, financial resilience, and even data sovereignty speaks to a world where the next great power struggles will be waged not in tanks and trenches but in algorithms and economic leverage.

At the same time, there are deep contradictions. China speaks of mutual respect, though it has ongoing territorial disputes with many of its neighbours. It champions sovereignty, but is accused of boosting Russian military efforts against Ukraine as well as of dabbling in the internal politics of others. And it promises security, while pursuing unprecedented domestic surveillance and control.

This tension between aspiration and reality is the defining challenge of China’s foreign policy today.

What then should we take from this white paper?

First, that China sees national security as inseparable from its global ambitions. Second, that it is serious about constructing parallel systems of governance and legitimacy, particularly in the digital, legal, and financial domains. And third, that it is willing to invest time, resources, and political capital to do so.

This is not a return to Maoist isolationism, but nor is it simply the embrace of liberal globalism. It is something new: a vision of national security where China seeks to shape not just its own future, but everyone else's too.

Whether the world welcomes that vision – or resists it – remains to be seen.

But what is clear is this: China has drawn its map of global security. And the rest of us will have to decide how to read it.

I’ve written about this, and more, in the 10th anniversary edition of my book The Silk Roads: a New History of the World, that comes out at the start of July.

We are living in time of over-lapping revolutions; it’s worth spending time to work out where those have risen from - and what might, or might not, happen next.

More soon.