Global Security With Chinese Characteristics

Beijing’s global security initiative is all about communist control

Chinese soldiers march in a military parade at the Zhurihe training base in China's northern Inner Mongolia region on July 30, 2017. (STR/AFP via Getty Image)

Commentary

Chinese leader Xi Jinping presses his case for world leadership through a “global security initiative.” But flowery words mask the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) real intentions.

Another day, another communist Chinese grand initiative. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Made in China 2025, Digital Silk Road (and “Digital China”), Polar Silk Road, etc. This one is perhaps the most grandiose of all: a “global security initiative.”

But what are the real goals that are obfuscated by the flowery language used by Xi during his keynote speech given at the Boao Asia Forum on April 21? The reality is that the global security initiative is just the latest communist Chinese application of lipstick on a pig.

Let us examine the topic.

Xi loves announcing initiatives in keynote speeches given to various friendly audiences. For example, he introduced the BRI (also known as “One Belt, One Road”) in a speech at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2013. And he announced the Digital Silk Road during a keynote speech at China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning in September 2020. So, too, with the new global security initiative.

The topic of security—especially as it applies to the internal security required to keep the CCP in—is never far from the thoughts of Xi and other communist leaders. All initiatives posed by Xi have a singular ultimate focus: to enhance the power, authority, and security of the CCP over all other considerations.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping delivers a speech via video link to the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum For Asia in southern China's Hainan Province on April 21, 2022. (Huang Jingwen/Xinhua via AP)

One of Xi’s first expostulations about security occurred in May 2014 in a keynote speech given at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Shanghai.

“We need to …  establish a new regional security cooperation architecture, and jointly build a shared, win-win road for Asian security,” Xi said. This is the usual highfalutin nonsense that we have come to expect.

But this statement in that speech reflected Xi’s real intentions regarding regional security: “We should abide by the basic norms governing international relations, such as respecting sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity; non-interference in internal affairs; respect social systems and chosen development paths.”

This declaration was a veiled announcement that Taiwan is part of mainland China’s “territorial integrity,” and that China would brook no foreign interference in how Beijing pursues integration of Taiwan into the communist polity.

Xi has repeated and expanded upon that gobbledygook over the past few years, and his views on “security” have been propagated endlessly by state-run Chinese media.

For example, CCP mouthpiece People’s Daily reminded us on April 2 that Xi “has consistently advocated a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, inspiring human society to march towards lasting peace and universal security.”

The associated policies that Xi supposedly advocates include international arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, a nuclear strategy of self-defense, and an active role in global peacekeeping operations.

Despite these claims, the reality is that the Chinese regime refuses to enter into nuclear strategic arms limitations talks, has almost certainly violated the 1984 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention, practices genocide on its own minority populations, continues to add capital ships to its already largest navy in the world, has the most active and diverse missile development program in the world, and is rapidly constructing DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile silos in Inner Mongolia.

Chinese military vehicles carrying DF-41 ballistic missiles roll past the Great Hall of the People during a parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of communist China in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

As usual, these Chinese communist actions speak louder than their flowery words. Apparently, Xi’s claims of support for “comprehensive and sustainable security” apply exclusively to CCP regime continuity in Beijing. At the same time, his “inspiring human society towards lasting peace” really means “inspiring other countries to obtain a form of peace by kowtowing to Chinese military supremacy.”

This brings us to Xi dressing up his regional security blarney as a new “global security initiative.” It is all of a piece with the same CCP goals and objectives.

This is the key sentence from his announcement in Hainan on April 21: “We should uphold the principle of indivisibility of security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the building of national security on the basis of insecurity in other countries.”

These words are targeted directly at Taiwan and intended to provide the CCP with an argument to act arbitrarily in any way it sees fit to deal with any “insecurities” associated with an independent Taiwan. Any deterrent support provided to Taiwan would be seen to violate the principle of indivisibility of security, which means that “states will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other states.”

The concept itself is absurd, especially when applied to Taiwan, because communist China’s vast military expansion, a small portion of which was noted above, clearly strengthens China’s security at the expense of the security of other states in the region (and the world)!

A People’s Daily posting on April 24 identifies six areas associated with Xi’s global security initiative. Of particular note is this one (emphasis added): “Stay committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, uphold non-interference in internal affairs, and respect the independent choices of development paths and social systems made by people in different countries.”

China’s actions once again speak louder than words and expose the self-serving hypocrisy that pervades Beijing’s diplomacy. Regarding the first phrase highlighted above, the CCP has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a direct violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity—while actually increasing the importation of Russian-produced hydrocarbons since the start of the war.

The second phrase concerning “non-interference in internal affairs” is quite obviously aimed at any foreign interference in Taiwan.

The last phrase about “independent choices of development paths and social systems” is particularly risible. As if the Chinese people have democratically selected over time the continuation of the totalitarian rule of the CCP! Another absurdity from the Party leaders who control all “democratic elections” in China.

Concluding Thoughts

Xi’s flowery words about global security mask the veiled fist of the continuing expansion of the capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army. And that expansion is intended to ensure the security and continuity of the communist regime in Beijing, as well as to intimidate and convince other countries to seek peaceful accommodations with an ascendant and belligerent China. Xi’s new initiative is better titled “global security with Chinese characteristics.”

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.