Recent Developments Underscore Beijing’s Global Security Ambitions

Executive Summary:

• Beijing is looking to increase its security presence in Asia and further afield, according to two recent high-level statements of intent—a white paper on “national security in the new era” and a new “model of security for Asia.”
• Beijing senses opportunities amid policy uncertainty from the United States. Efforts on the margins, such as limited security cooperation with Southeast Asian states, could lay the groundwork for higher-stakes security cooperation in the future.
• The ideas behind the Party-state’s latest announcements have been over a decade in the making. One such idea, the “comprehensive national security concept,” is now linked explicitly with Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative, indicating Xi’s ambitions to promote his governance models beyond the borders of the People’s Republic of China.

Two high-level announcements relating to international security shed light on how the leadership of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) sees the state of the world and its role in it. A white paper titled “China’s National Security in the New Era” (新时代的中国国家安全)—the first of its kind for the country—portrays Chinese society as an example of stability amid a world facing “new turbulent changes” (新的动荡变革). It also stresses the need for a “comprehensive” (总体) approach to national security (Xinhua, May 12). [1] Meanwhile, General Secretary Xi Jinping has introduced the concept of a “model of security for Asia” (亚洲安全模式), described as featuring “sharing weal and woe, seeking common ground while shelving differences, and prioritizing dialogue and consultation as the strategic support” (以安危与共、求同存异、对话协商的亚洲安全模式为战略支撑) (FMPRC, April 9; People’s Daily, April 10).

Both of these statements build on ideas articulated by Xi Jinping over a decade ago. The white paper leans heavily on the “Comprehensive National Security Concept” (总体国家安全观) that Xi Jinping announced in April 2014; while precedent for the “model of security for Asia” can be found in the “Asian Security Concept” (亚洲安全观) Xi introduced the same year (Xinhua, April 15, 2014; MFA, May 14, 2014). Taken together, the latest announcements suggest Beijing is looking to expand its own security cooperation activity at a time when Chinese leaders may perceive the United States as likely to adjust its own security presence in the region.

Taking the Comprehensive National Security Concept Global

The white paper builds on the “Comprehensive National Security Concept,” expanding on the 11 types of security found in the original formulation to include emerging issue areas like overseas interests, space, deep sea, polar, artificial intelligence, data, and “many other fields” (等诸多领域). [2] While focusing primarily on domestic security concerns, the latter sections pivot to concentrate on the global context.

In its fifth section (out of six), the document lays out the PRC’s vision for implementing the Global Security Initiative (GSI; 全球安全倡议), declaring it as “not only the ‘security chapter’ of the community of common destiny for mankind, but also the ‘world chapter’ of the Comprehensive National Security Concept.” This is the first time that an authoritative document has so explicitly linked GSI—a campaign introduced by Xi in April 2022 to promote a Chinese vision of global security—with the Comprehensive National Security Concept, although credible PRC academics and security researchers have directly made the connection before (World Issue, February 28, 2023; Teaching and Research, December 12, 2024). [3]

The GSI continues to defy easy analysis. All manner of activities are included under its implementation. For instance, a July 2024 report on the topic by the official MFA think tank, the China Institute of International Studies, runs over a hundred pages. It lists efforts the PRC has made to contribute to global security that often predate the announcement of the initiative itself. Some efforts involve actors not usually associated with traditional security issues (such as the Ministry of Ecology and Environment or the Ministry of Natural Resources), while others are carried out by non-state actors (such as the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT), a “non-governmental non-profit cybersecurity technical center”) (China Institute of International Studies, July 2024; CNCERT, accessed July 2). Among western analysts, there is ongoing debate between those who see GSI as part of a global order-building project (Atlantic Council, June 21, 2023; Foreign Affairs, July 28, 2023), and those who see it instead as “propaganda intended to shape foreign perceptions of China” or to create space for the PRC’s growing role in international security (Polity, March 2025; NBR, May 16).

The ultimate role of the GSI in PRC statecraft remains to be seen and its purpose may change over time depending on the country’s needs. Officially tying the Comprehensive National Security Concept into the initiative, however, shows that Beijing is constructing a conceptual framework that will underpin an expansion of its security-related activities abroad into a wide array of issue areas.

A New ‘Asian Security Model’

The new “model of security for Asia” represents a pitch to regional players for a more muscular Chinese presence in the region. Introduced at the Central Conference on Work Related to Neighboring Countries in April it has subsequently been expanded upon in official commentaries in the People’s Daily and PLA Daily. These assert that the model inherits “the Asian peoples’ tradition of advocating peace” (传承亚洲人民崇尚和平的思想传统) and is in the interests of all the PRC’s neighbors (People’s Daily, May 4; PLA Daily, June 6). Commentators also make thinly veiled references to the United States as a negative force in regional security dynamics, with one writing that “some countries have continued to fan the flames and create tensions in order to maintain their own hegemony” (个别国家为维护自身霸权 … 持续煽风点火、制造紧张) (People’s Daily, June 4).

The model builds on the “New Asian Security Concept” that Xi unveiled in 2014 at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, a multilateral meeting in Shanghai. His remarks then made a similar case to his more recent statements, arguing that the security interests of Asian nations were closely intertwined, and that “it is for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia” (Embassy of the PRC in the Republic of Indonesia, May 30, 2015). As in 2014, Beijing does not expect neighboring countries to immediately pivot toward entering new security partnerships or abandoning security ties with the United States, even as it presents an alternative regional security order to its neighbors. At the same time, Beijing believes it now can make a more compelling case for playing an enlarged security role: it possesses the largest navy in the world by number of vessels, has increased military diplomatic activities in the region, and aspires to present itself (credibly or not) as a past and future mediator of tensions in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine (Xinhua, April 8, 2023, May 31, 2024, July 23, 2024, China Strategic Perspectives, June 23).

Conclusion

The timing of the PRC’s new white paper on national security and the announcement of the Asian Security Model is difficult to ignore. Both arrived in the early month of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, during which he has floated a troop drawdown in South Korea and demanded Tokyo raise defense spending, while his administration’s approach to Southeast Asia—likely a frontline in the competition for security cooperation opportunities with the PRC—has been at best mixed. (AP News, May 29;  South China Morning Post, June 21, 2025). PRC officials may see this moment as one in which the PRC’s neighbors are feeling insecure in their security relations with the United States and therefore liable to hedge toward the PRC.

Policymakers in Beijing will continue to push security cooperation with the PRC’s neighbors on the whole range of issues included in the Comprehensive National Security Concept. Although these efforts may start on the margins, such as security cooperation with Southeast Asian states on issues like transnational crime or counterterrorism, they could lay the groundwork for improved mutual trust that leads to deeper, higher-stakes security cooperation. If the PRC can deepen security cooperation with some countries on its periphery, it may create leverage in the region that complicates the United States’s own latitude of maneuver in a variety of ways.

This work represents the views of the author and is not to be regarded as representing the opinions of CNA or any of its sponsors.

Notes

[1] The official English translation of 总体 in this context is “holistic.” For more China Brief coverage of the Concept, see: China Brief, June 19, 2015; October 4, 2022; May 23. Interestingly, Xinhua claims that the white paper aims to “enhance the international community’s understanding of China’s national security” (Xinhua, May 12). However, as of this article’s publication, only the white paper’s abstract has been translated into English (Xinhua, May 12; May 13).

[2] The original 11 types of security under the Concept were: political, territorial, military, economic, cultural, societal, scientific and technological, information, ecological, resource, and nuclear security.

[3] For example, neither the “GSI Concept Paper” released in September 2023, nor speeches on GSI implementation by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) official Chen Xiaodong (陈晓东) in 2024 and 2025 make this link (MFA, March 28, 2023; July 19, 2024; March 26). For more information on the GSI, see: China Brief, March 3, 2023; May 23.