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The Center for Strategic Translation provides statesmen and scholars with the tools needed to interpret the Chinese party-state of today while training a new generation of China specialists with the skills needed to guide our relations with the China of tomorrow.

The Center meets this need through initiatives in translation and education. The Center locates, translates, and annotates documents of historic or strategic value that are currently only available in Chinese. Our introductory essays, glossaries, and commentaries are designed to make these materials accessible and understandable to statesmen and scholars with no special expertise in Chinese politics or the Chinese language.

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Seize the Opportunity to Plan China's National Security Strategy for the New Era

抓紧运筹新时期中国国家安全战略

Introduction

One part intellectual framework for guiding state security work, one part bludgeon for reshaping the state security bureaucracy itself, the “Total National Security Paradigm” is Xi Jinping’s signature theoretical contribution to the security of the Communist Party of China. A special focus of Xi’s paradigm is the integration of the internal security and surveillance regime of the PRC with its external diplomatic, military, and intelligence activities.  Stage by stage this understanding of state security has been codified in a suite of new national security laws and official national security strategies, embodied in new organs for coordinating state security, and popularized in study materials distributed to cadres across the country.1  At each point of this process we find Chen Xiangyang explaining and justifying to the Party faithful what the new Paradigm means and why the wide ranging changes that Xi Jinping advocates are necessary to realize it. 

Chen Xiangyang began his career at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a quasi-academic research center funded and staffed by officers from China’s premier intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).2 Chen received his PhD from CICIR in 2003 with a dissertation that focused on China’s strategic relations with the countries on its near periphery.3 As with many CICIR researchers his subsequent career with CICIR is somewhat difficult to trace: a stint as a visiting scholar abroad here, participation in a United Front group there, with a smattering of articles published in various party publications and academic journals throughout. By the mid-2010s Chen had been elevated to Department Director of CICIR’s Department of World Politics, where it can be safely assumed he was an active participant in analytical and policy processes that CICIR does not publicize. He would leave this position in 2021 to join a new CICIR research unit: The Center for Research on the Total National Security Paradigm. 

This essay was written long before Chen’s career was publicly intertwined with the new Security Paradigm. Written while Chen was still ensconced in CICIR's Department of World Politics and several months before the Total National Security Paradigm would be officially unveiled, the impetus for Chen’s essay was the creation of the Central National Security Commission (中央国家安全委员会), which occurred during the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee in November 2013. Chen presents this bureaucratic restructuring as the first step of a larger conceptual overhaul of state security work as a whole. His essay is an attempt to stake out what this new approach to state security should mean for China’s broader diplomatic posture. Though he does not use the phrase “Total National Security Paradigm” itself, his essay expresses numerous ideas that would soon be incorporated into Xi's framework. Given Chen’s subsequent career, these arguments should be read as the assessments of an insider who would go on to help formulate and popularize Xi Jinping’s new approach to state security.

Chen’s conception of the problem set that the Total National Security Paradigm solves are fairly conventional. Chen faults the PRC’s state security apparatus for inefficiency, overlapping lines of authority, and a rigid bureaucratic inertia. This top heavy and hidebound bureaucratic structure is not suited to meet the security challenges inherent to a globalized era where “the internal and external factors which affect national security frequently intersect and have consequences that are interlinked with each other.” On the one hand, the internet and trade ties have increased Western influence inside China, empowering Western countries to “meddle” with China’s internal security; on the other hand, China's growing economic interests abroad mean that China has new security interests far from its own borders. For Chen, the creation of the Central National Security Commission was in part official recognition that “national security [now] includes an increasing number of increasingly broad domains.”

More unique is Chen’s discussion of how the Paradigm fits into the long term aims of Chinese security strategy. Most authors with quasi-official positions like Chen’s stick to broad generalizations about the need to guarantee the safety of the Chinese people, secure the Party’s sovereign power, and realize national rejuvenation. Chen breaks these broad aims into more specific sub-goals, tying each to specific points on a timeline stretching from the article’s 2013 publication through the PRC centennial in 2049.

According to this periodization, the goal of the first two stages—the first ending with the 19th Party Congress in 2017, the second in 2020—of the Chinese state security apparatus is preserving the conditions that allow for China’s breakneck economic development. These goals are not original: both of these periods’ end dates correspond to existing economic targets previously articulated by Party leaders. Chen believes that after 2020 the focus of state security will shift away from economic development. In the “three decade window” to follow 2020

our objective is to ensure stable domestic governance, sculpt the international security environment in a more proactive manner, increase the provision of "public goods" for international security, and realize a positive and complementary relationship between the broader domestic and international security landscapes. Meanwhile, during this period we need to achieve complete national unity and territorial integrity in an appropriate manner.

Each of these items stands in stark relief to the security priorities of the reform era. “A positive and complementary relationship between the broader domestic and international security landscapes” must be established because, as Chen’s earlier worries about globalization's effect on China’s internal stability suggest, Chen does not believe that this positive relationship exists. A China “proactively sculpting” and “provisioning public goods for” the international order would be a China that had decisively abandoned Deng’s advice to “maintain a low profile and never claim leadership.”4 Achieving “complete national unity and territorial integrity” suggests that the problem posed by Taiwan’s de facto autonomy must finally be confronted before this period concludes.

With these aims accomplished the PRC can look forward to 2049, the culmination of Chen’s final stage in the evolution of China's national security. By this point China will be “a major architect of the new regional security order and a major participant within a new international security order.” Whether the demise of the existing security order is to be secured by the defeat or disintegration is not specified. But by endorsing this goal Chen subtly suggests that the American system of military alliances is not compatible with his party’s long term security.  

It is notable that Chen articulates these grand strategic goals in an essay that argues that the Party must “focus on the internal as the top priority and the external as a secondary priority.” Chen repeatedly affirms that political security is the paramount concern of the new paradigm. That Chen then proceeds to write so much about China’s external environment in a piece outlining a new framework for securing China's internal order suggests that for men like Chen Xiangyang, the strength of its domestic regime cannot be disentangled from the shape of the international order. 

1. For a concise overview of these developments, see Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,”China Leadership Monitor, 1 September 2022.
2. On the relationship between the MSS and CICIR see Alex Joske, Spies and Lies: How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World (Sydney: Hardie Grant Books, 2022), pp. 24–29; David Shambaugh, “China's International Relations Think Tanks: Evolving Structure and Process,”The China Quarterly 171 (2002), pp. 575–596.
3. This would be published in monograph form in 2004 as Zhongguo Mulin Waijiao: Sixiang, Shijian, Qianzhan 中国睦邻外交:思想·实践·前瞻 [China's Good Neighbor Diplomacy: Thought, Practice, and Prospects] (Beijing 北京: Shishi Chuban She 时事出版社 [Current Affairs Press], 2004).
4. These were two phrases from Deng’s famous “24 character” strategy (in Chinese they read “善于守拙,决不当头”). The earliest official reference to the strategy came after the Tiananmen Square protest. In speech to the CPC Central Committee in September 1989, Deng laid out key portions of the strategy: “In short, my views about the international situation can be summed up in three sentences. First, we should observe the situation coolly. Second, we should hold our ground. Third, we should act calmly. Don’t be impatient; it is no good to be impatient. We should be calm, calm and again calm, and quietly immerse ourselves in practical work to accomplish something—something for China.” In a report released in December the same year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs extracted Deng's thought into a 24 character slogan: “observe calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; make friends; know our strength [冷静观察、韬光养晦、站稳脚跟、沉着应付、朋友要交、心中有数].”

The imperative that China should “maintain a low profile and never claim leadership [善于守拙, 决不当头]” was added to the strategy the following year. The addition was based on Deng's address to ranking members of the Central Committee in December 1990: “Now the international situation is full of unpredictable factors and conflicts are becoming more and more prominent. The two hegemons used to fight for the world, but now it is much more complicated and chaotic than that time. There are some countries in the third world that want China to be the leader. We must not claim leadership. This is a fundamental national policy.”

See Deng Xiaoping, “With Stable Policies of Reform and Opening To the Outside World, China Can Have Great Hopes For the Future,” inThe Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping Vol 3. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2010); Gong Li 宫力, “Yu Shijie Gongwu: Deng Xiaoping Zhanlue Shijiande Xianshi Yiyi 与世界共舞:邓小平对外战略实践的现实意义 [Dancing with the World: The Practical Significance of Deng Xiaoping's Foreign Strategy].” Pengbo Xingwen 澎湃新闻 [The Paper], 22 August 2018; Rush Doshi, The Long Game (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).

Author
Chen Xiangyang
陈向阳
original publication
Liaowang Weekly Magazine
瞭望新闻周刊
publication date
December 2, 2013
Translator
Isaiah Schrader
Translation date
March 2023
Tags
Tag term
Tag term
Center, The
中央

“The Center” is a literal rendering of zhōngyāng. The phrase is is most commonly used as an abbreviation for the CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the Communist Party of China (中国共产党中央委员会), and official Chinese translations almost always opt for translating it as “The Central Committee.” The term, however, is more ambiguous than most translations into English allow. Cheng Zhenqiu, who directed  the English translation of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, described his dissatisfaction with his own translation with these comments:

Lexically, there are still many issues…for example, the translation of zhōngyāng [中央]….Sometimes zhongyang refers to the Central Standing Committee [中央常委], sometimes it refers to the Central Politburo [中央政治局], and more often it refers to the Central Committee. Abroad some have begun translating it as “the Center”; on this issue there’s room for further research (Snape 2021).

The kaleidoscopic nature of the term is evident in Party regulations governing the Central Committee, which declares that 

The Central Committee, Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) are the brain and central hub of the Party organization. Only the Party Centre has the mandate to make decisions and interpret Party-wide and state-wide important principles and policies  (Xinhua 2020).

The usefulness of a term whose definition can stretch to describe either the Central Committee, the POLITBURO, or the POLITBURO STANDING COMMITTEE as contingency requires has been recognized since the days of Mao Zedong, when obedience to The Center was first codified as part of the “FOUR OBEYS” regulating Party life. In particular, obfuscating the specific source of new directives means that decisions that may have only been made by a small group of leading cadres are cloaked with the mantle of larger party organs, suggesting a shared consensus or collective decision making process that may not actually exist.

See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE; POLITBURO

Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation
中华民族伟大复兴

General Secretaries of the Communist Party of China have described “national rejuvenation” [民族复兴] as the central mission of their Party since the Thirteenth Party Congress in 1987. Their wording intentionally echoes the language used by Sun Yat-sen and the nationalist revolutionaries who overthrew the Qing Dynasty at the cusp of the modern era. Those revolutionaries dreamed of restoring a broken nation to its traditional station at the center of human civilization.Though he lives a century after Sun Yat-sen’s death, Xi Jinping rarely gives a speech without endorsing the same aspiration. As Xi describes it, national rejuvenation is a “strategic plan” for “achieving lasting greatness for the Chinese nation” (Xi 2022). The formal term for this plan is the “National Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation,” a term that could be alternatively translated as the “National Rejuvenation of the Chinese Race.” In the modern era national rejuvenation has been formally identified as the overarching goal of all activities of both party and state.

The work of a Leninist party is inherently goal oriented. Chinese governance depends on a  “high pressure system” [压力型体制] that uses a mix of campaign tactics and career incentives to focus the work of millions of cadres on a shared set of tasks, all of which are nested in a hierarchy of overarching goals. During the Maoist era China’s leadership identified the  “the realization of communism” as the “ultimate aim of the Party,” and proposed “victory in class struggle” as the path for reaching this end (Perrolle 1976). The CPC of today still endorses the“realization of communism” as the “highest ideal and ultimate aim” of the Party, but argues that “the highest ideal of communism pursued by Chinese Communists can be realized only when socialist society is fully developed and highly advanced,” a historical process that will “take over a century” to achieve (Constitution of the CPC 2022). In contrast, the “lasting greatness” associated with national rejuvenation can be accomplished on a more feasible timescale. The Party expects to lead the Chinese race to this desired end state by 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic of China. Achieving the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation by this date is the overarching goal of the Chinese party-state.

To attain national rejuvenation, party leadership has argued that China must become a “great and modern socialist state” [社会主义现代化强国]. In Xi Jinping’s NEW ERA this imperative has been broken down into five aspirational end states: prosperity and strength [富强],democracy [民主], advanced culture [文明], social harmony [和谐], and beauty [美丽]. The first category emphasize the Party’s drive to build a country whose COMPOSITE NATIONAL POWER is commensurate with a civilization at the leading edge of modernity; the next three identify the desired relationship between the Communist Party and a unified Chinese nation; the last is associated with campaigns to reduce pollution and forge a healthier relationship between industrial development and the natural environment. 

With sub-components as broad as these, almost any policy promoted by THE CENTER falls under the remit of “national rejuvenation.” The breadth of this mandate is intentional. As communist utopia retreats ever further into the future, Party leadership has bet that reclaiming lost Chinese greatness is the one cause “the entire Party and all the Chinese people [will] strive for” (Xi 2022). 

See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; CENTURY OF NATIONAL HUMILIATION

Hegemonism
霸权主义

When Chinese intellectuals and Communist Party officials inveigh against “hegemonism” they invoke a term first used more than two millennia ago to refer to a ruling power that maintains its position through violence and subterfuge. The territory of ancient China was divided between a dozen warring kingdoms; for centuries the only respite from turmoil came when leaders of unusual strategic acumen used diplomatic skill and military power to overwhelm their enemies and enforce a general peace. These kings were known as [霸], or “hegemons.” The order of a hegemon rarely lasted past his death. Ancient Chinese thinkers often contrasted the fragile peace produced by the “way of the hegemon” with the imagined  “way of a true king,” which promised a peaceful order premised not on violence, but moral suasion. When 21st century Chinese proclaim that they  “oppose hegemonism” it is thus a specific style of leadership they reject–a style reminiscent of the illegitimate hegemons of Chinese antiquity.

Deng Xiaoping described the features of modern hegemonism in a blistering 1974 address to the United Nations. There he condemned the Soviet Union and the United States as 

the biggest international exploiters and oppressors of today... They both possess large numbers of nuclear weapons. They carry on a keenly contested arms race, station massive forces abroad and set up military bases everywhere, threatening the independence and security of all nations. They both keep subjecting other countries to their control, subversion, interference or aggression (Deng 1974).

Deng maintained that in response to this illegitimate exercise of hegemonic power, Chinese foreign policy would focus on “strengthening the unity of the developing countries, safeguarding their national economic rights and interests, and promoting the struggle of all peoples against imperialism and hegemonism” (Deng 1974). Though Chinese diplomats would take a less confrontational stance during the era of REFORM AND OPENING, Deng continued to describe  “opposing hegemonism” as a central plank of Chinese foreign policy for the rest of his life. 

Chinese propagandists are still preoccupied with the ills of American hegemonism. They often pair attacks on American belligerence with a vow that China will “never seek hegemony” [永远不称霸]. When uttering this phrase, Chinese officials and diplomats are not promising to abandon China’s ADVANCE TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE. Rather, they promise that China will rise without adopting the “hegemonic” means America has relied on (such as alliance blocs, nuclear coercion, or an expansive network of global military bases) to maintain its global position. 

See also: ADVANCING TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; COMMUNITY OF COMMON DESTINY FOR MANKINDHOSTILE FORCES

National Rejuvenation
民族复兴
Period of Strategic Opportunity
战略机遇期

The concept of a “period of strategic opportunity” was first introduced by Jiang Zemin in 2002. In his political report to the 16th Party Congress, Jiang identified “the first two decades of the twenty-first century” as “an important period of strategic opportunity that must be grasped tightly.” In Jiang’s telling, the turn of the 21st century introduced a rare window of time in which China could focus all of its efforts on economic development. By embracing the forces of globalization during this window, the Party had the opportunity to build Chinese power through peaceful means, thereby laying the foundation for “a strong, prosperous, democratic and culturally advanced socialist country by the middle of this century” (Jiang 2002).

Jiang’s slogan was born out of the foreign policy debates that racked the Communist Party of China in the late 1990s. A decade before Deng Xiaoping had declared that PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT WERE THE THEME OF THE TIMES; a suite of reform era policies—including China’s opening to outside investment, Deng’s pursuit of market reforms, and the decision to terminate support for Maoist guerillas in the developing world—flowed from this assessment. A world trending towards peace and economic integration was a world where it was safe to focus the work of the Chinese party-state on economic reform.

The annual debates over China’s trading status in Washington, the 1997 Taiwan Straits crisis, and America’s 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade all put Deng’s assessment of the international scene to question. Many in China believed that it had been a mistake to prioritize economic growth over military power or confrontation with the United States. China’s ascension to the WTO and the 9/11 attacks—which diverted American hostility away from the PRC and towards the Middle East—put an end to their worries. By 2002 it was clear that globalization would not only power China’s economic ascent but would also temper opposition to China’s growing material might.

Jiang’s conception of the period of strategic opportunity was endorsed by the two men who governed China during the remainder of this window of opportunity. Both Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping repeated Jiang’s phrase verbatim; both paired it with fulsome depictions of globalization as an unstoppable historical force. Yet as Xi Jinping’s second term came to a close, economic integration seemed a far less powerful trend than it had seemed at the start of tenure. By that point the BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE had met with numerous setbacks; China was engaged in an unforgiving trade war with the United States, and anti-China sentiment was rising across the globe. Two decades after Jiang’s introduction of the period of strategic opportunity, Xi would offer a new assessment of the times:

Our country has entered a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising… We must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms (Xi 2022).

 Xi’s new formula does not predict imminent war. It does suggest, however, that the Party can no longer rely on globalization and economic integration to shepherd the REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION. In an international environment defined by risk and danger, the strategies of the reform era are no longer sufficient to secure the Party CENTER’s desired future.

See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; GREAT CHANGES UNSEEN IN A CENTURY; PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT ARE THE THEME OF THE TIMES; COMPOSITE NATIONAL POWER; PATH OF PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT

Total National Security Paradigm
总体国家安全观

The Total National Security Paradigm is a set of interlinked concepts that party sources describe as Xi Jinping’s signature contribution to Chinese security theory. Xi introduced the paradigm in a 2014 address where he instructed cadres to “pay attention to both traditional and non-traditional security, and build a national security system that integrates such elements as political, military, economic, cultural, social, science and technology, information, ecological, resource, and nuclear security” (Xi 2014, p. 221-222).  This distinction between traditional [传统] and non-traditional [非传统] security is key to Xi’s paradigm. “Traditional security” is oriented around threats to China’s territorial integrity and threats from foreign military powers. The Total National Security Paradigm guides cadres to place equal emphasis on “non-traditional security” threats which cannot be resolved with military tools, but which are potentially as dangerous as military defeat.

Variously translated as the Holistic Approach to National Security, the Comprehensive National Security Concept, or the Overall National Security Outlook, the core of Xi's security paradigm is a maximalist conception of security. This intellectual framework blurs the lines between hard and soft power, internal and external threats, and traditional distinctions between the worlds of economics, culture, and diplomacy. China’s accounting of its security must be “total” [总体].

Though the Total National Security Paradigm is the most forceful and systematic presentation of this idea, it is not new to Party thought. Mao introduced the phrase PEACEFUL EVOLUTION into the party lexicon to describe the threat posed by Western powers who hoped to overthrow communist regimes by instigating revolution from within. The collapse of the Soviet Union vividly demonstrated what happened to a party who ignored this threat. From that moment to the present day, party leaders and state intellectuals have portrayed the Communist Party of China as safeguarding a system under siege. Be they faced with economic coercion and political isolation or friendly offers to integrate into the international order, party authorities consistently describe their country as the object of hostile stratagems designed to subvert China’s domestic stability and the Party’s unquestioned rule.

Xi Jinping’s solution to this problem differs from its predecessors more in scale than concept. Officials in the Jiang and Hu eras offered regular warnings about the danger that ideological dissent, social protest, online media, and official corruption posed to the Party’s hold on power. The Total National Security Paradigm formalized these warnings into a more systematic conceptual framework. In Leninist systems theoretical frameworks like these are the necessary prerequisite of bureaucratic overhaul. If this was the concept’s purpose it seems to have accomplished its aim: by the 20th Congress, the Chinese government was spending more on its internal security budget than on military power, the state security apparatus saw fresh expansion down to lower levels of government, and new national bodies like the Central National Security Commission (CNSC) [中央国家安全委员会] were coordinating state security functions across China’s bureaucratic labyrinth.

See also: CORE INTERESTS; HOSTILE FORCES; PEACEFUL EVOLUTION; SOFT BONE DISEASE; COMPOSITE NATIONAL POWER

Plenum
全体会议

A plenum, or more formally, a Plenary Session of a Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a gathering of all full and alternate members of the CENTRAL COMMITTEE  held to review and approve policies proposed by the POLITBURO. In the post-Mao era it is customary for each CENTRAL COMMITTEE to hold seven plenums in its five year term. These closed door meetings are usually the most important political events of any given year. The topics discussed in the plenary sessions range from revisions to the constitution to realignments of development strategy. Deliberations are secret. The General Secretary delivers a speech to the CENTRAL COMMITTEE, but this speech is usually not published until long after the plenum has concluded.  

In the post-Mao era the topics addressed in the seven plenums tend to follow a pattern: the first plenum is held to select the POLITBURO and CENTRAL COMMITTEE membership, the second confirms the leadership of important government posts, the third is devoted to economic development and reform, the fourth focuses on initiatives in law or party building, the fifth lays the groundwork for the next FIVE YEAR PLAN, the sixth addresses problems of ideology, culture, or intra-party rules, and the seventh prepares the CENTRAL COMMITTEE for the upcoming PARTY CONGRESS.

Documents drafted during plenums are among the most authoritative in the Chinese policy process; each compacts the various guidelines, policies, and tasks issued since the previous plenum into a baseline directive for the entire party. At select points in modern Chinese history–such as the 3rd and 5th plenums of the 11th Party Congress–meetings of the Central Committee have served as forums for substantive intra-party debates. More often the Central Committee simply makes small adjustments to plans already agreed on by the Politburo ahead of time. 

See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE; POLITBURO; PARTY CONGRESS; FIVE YEAR PLAN

Plenary Session
全体会议

See PLENUM.

Discursive Power
话语权

Those who wield discursive power possess the ability to shape, select, or amplify the ideas, frames, and sources of authority that guide political decision making. The concept was developed in response to the puzzlement and frustration many Chinese nationalists felt as their country’s mounting material power failed to translate into commensurate influence over global affairs. They concluded that China’s dazzling economic growth and rising military might was insufficient to change the structure of the international order because the norms that govern interstate relations are downstream of cultural values China had little influence over. The West’s intellectual hegemony allows it to embed its value set and viewpoint in the structure of international politics. This is a form of power: discursive power.

Often translated as “discourse power,” more rarely as “the right to speak,” and sometimes simply as “say” or “voice,” the neologism rose to prominence in Chinese academic writing in the mid-aughts and was subsequently elevated into the Party lexicon in the 2010s. The various alternative translations of the term reflect an ambiguity present in the original Chinese. Huàyǔquán [话语权] is a compound word that combines huàyǔ [话语], the Chinese word for “speech,” “language,” or “discourse,” with the more ambiguous quán [权], whose meaning shifts between “authority,” “rights,” or “power” depending on the context in which it is used. “Right to speak” is therefore a reasonable translation of huàyǔquán [话语权], for the right to speak about the Party’s accomplishments through a “Chinese” frame is precisely what party leaders believe the hegemonic culture of the West denies them. However, neither dictionary listings for the word nor academic discussion of its role in international affairs emphasize freedoms or entitlements. Their focus is on influence and control. They suggest that control of the world rests with those who control the words that the world is using.

This is not an entirely new concept in Party thought. Following in Marx and Lenin’s footsteps, Mao rejected the notion of a neutral public sphere where policy can be hashed out in a process of rational deliberation. He was insistent that the world of ideas was in fact a central domain in the struggle for power, and that no idea could be divorced from the class interest or political program of those who proposed it. Chinese discussions of Western discursive power take a similar approach, treating concepts like “human rights,” “universal values,” and other guiding liberal ideals not as genuine moral or intellectual commitments but as tools of power used to legitimize American hegemony and weaken America’s enemies. Here the Soviet Union’s sad fate serves as a warning: failure to challenge the discursive power of the hegemon abroad can lead to the collapse of discursive power at home. Thus discursive power does not just influence China’s international standing, but also the political security of its ruling regime.

Chinese leaders have found no easy solutions to the problems posed by the West’s discursive dominance.  Censorship at home and interference operations abroad allow the Party to stifle some ideas that might otherwise find their way into discourse. However, the Party leadership recognizes the limits to this negative approach. In their view, if China wishes to successfully reshape the operating norms of the international system, then China must articulate a positive vision of the world it wants to build; if China desires renown and acclaim on the international stage, then it must articulate a value set less hostile to Chinese success than the human rights paradigm now normative across the globe. Xi Jinping has thus directed Chinese academics to develop “new concepts, new categories, and a new language that international society can easily understand and accept so as to guide the direction of research and debate in the international academic community” (Xi 2016). Cadres and diplomats are charged with a simpler mission: “tell China’s story well” [讲好中国故事]. As Xi recently put it, to secure China's NATIONAL REJUVENATION the Party must:

Collect and refine the defining symbols and best elements of Chinese culture and showcase them to the world. Accelerate the development of China’s discourse and narrative systems, tell China’s story well, make China’s voice heard, and present a China that is worthy of trust, adoration, and respect. Strengthen our international communications capabilities, make our communications more effective, and strive to strengthen China’s discursive power in international affairs so that it is commensurate with our composite national strength and international status (Xi 2022).

See also: COMMUNITY OF COMMON DESTINY FOR ALL MANKIND; HEGEMONISM; PEACEFUL EVOLUTION; TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM; COMPOSITE NATIONAL POWER

Hostile Forces
敌对势力

The first warnings about the dangers posed by “hostile forces” were issued in the Soviet Union of Lenin and Trotsky. The basic meaning of the term has shifted little over the subsequent century: then, as now, “hostile forces” refer to the constellation of individuals, organizations, and nations that communist party leaders believe are ideologically committed to overthrowing or subverting communist rule. The phrase does not distinguish enemies foreign and domestic; it is often used when party leaders or theorists wish to blur that distinction altogether. To label an unwelcome episode the product of ‘hostile forces’ is to insinuate that dissent and disorder within China is ultimately dependent on malicious actors outside of it.

The revolutionary leadership of the Soviet Union saw in the setbacks, reversals, and disasters that haunted their cause the malign hand of “hostile forces,” “hostile elements,” and “hostile classes.” A passage from Stalin's Short Course, an official primer on Soviet history avidly studied by Mao and his contemporaries as a textbook on socialist construction, provides an illustration of both the term itself and the mindset behind its employment:

Survivals of bourgeois ideas still remained in men’s minds and would continue to do so even though capitalism had been abolished in economic life. It should be borne in mind that the surrounding capitalist world, against which we had to keep our powder dry, was working to revive and foster these survivals….. [For example] the Party organizations had relaxed the struggle against local nationalism, and had allowed it to grow to such an extent that it had allied itself with hostile forces, the forces of intervention, and had become a danger to the state…. Comrade Stalin [thereupon] called upon the Party to be more active in ideological-political work, to systematically expose the ideology and the remnants of the ideology of the hostile classes and of the trends hostile to Leninism (Stalin 1939, emphasis added).

This bit of Stalinist rhetoric blends fear of foreign intervention, dissident ideology, and state weakness into one fearsome whole. In the late Mao era Chinese communists imported the term into their own lexicon, and have consistently used it to describe this same threatening trinity.  An editorial in the People’s Daily published shortly after the Tiananmen Square Massacre provides a characteristic example. It blames that incident on both “the [larger] international climate and the domestic climate” which allowed  “hostile forces at home and abroad” to “manufacture this storm [for the purpose of] overthrowing the leadership of the CPC, subverting the socialist system, and turning China into a vassal of the capitalist developed countries” (People’s Daily 1990).

Classifying social groups and foreign powers by their hostility to the communist cause is a rhetorically clever solution to an otherwise difficult set of problems. Most warnings about the threat posed by hostile forces do not explicitly identify the hostile actors in question. This fuzziness allows party propagandists to imply that internal opposition relies on external support without ever having to engage themselves in the messy business of proving which organizations, individuals, or social groups are linked to foreign powers, which foreign powers they are linked to, or how these links are maintained. Diplomatic crises are avoided in a similar fashion, with the Party exploiting the threat of hostile combinations to instill urgency in its cadres without needing to accuse any specific group of foreigners of wrongdoing.

This ambiguity has proved less sustainable in the age of Xi Jinping. As Sino-American relations have worsened, the phrase “hostile forces” is often reduced to a thinly veiled label for the United States and its allies. Yet foreign pressure has only exacerbated Xi's anxieties about China's internal cohesion. Over his tenure Xi Jinping has re-engineered the state security complex to make it more sensitive to and capable of resolving internal political shocks. This overhaul has been both costly and comprehensive. Guiding this transformation is Xi’s signature TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM, a set of ideas which places the threat posed by ideological and political threats to one-party rule on the same plane as national defense. One doctrinal summary of Xi's paradigm returns to the problem of hostile forces to justify such great effort:

Hostile forces inside and outside our borders have never abandoned their subversive intent to Westernize and divide our state. They do not rest, not even for a moment... This is a real and present danger to the security of our sovereign power. (Office of the Central National Security Commission 2022).

See also: HEGEMONISM; PEACEFUL EVOLUTION; TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM

Moderately Prosperous Society
小康社会

In 1979, leaders of the People’s Republic of China began describing the creation of a “moderately prosperous society” as a unifying aim of all work done by the Communist Party of China. Alternatively translated as a “well-off society,” the term’s origins lie in a classical Confucian phrase for a prospering social order that nevertheless falls short of utopian ideals. Reformers elevated the term to orthodoxy both to signal that the Maoist struggle for utopia was over and that party work should henceforth be focused on the more practical needs of normal economic development. For several decades party leaders identified the year 2021—the centennial of the CPC’s founding—as the date on which China would secure its status as a moderately prosperous society. When in 2021 Chinese officials duly declared that China had in fact become moderately prosperous, they were not only celebrating the economic successes of the previous three decades but justifying the Party’s transition away from a narrow focus on economic growth to a broader pursuit of NATIONAL REJUVENATION on all fronts. 

The idea of “moderate prosperity,” or xiǎokāng [小康], dates back to the Book of Rites, one of the canonical texts of the Confucian tradition. There Confucius described a past golden age where “the world was shared by all alike. The worthy and the able were promoted to office and men practiced good faith and lived in affection. Therefore they did not regard as parents only their own parents, or as sons only their own sons” (Chen 2011). Confucius called this utopic past dàtóng [大同] , or “the Great Unity.” He contrasted this with the xiǎokāng societies founded by worthy rulers of his own day, which despite being well-ordered, governed by ritual, and relatively wealthy did not attain the harmony and moral excellence of the distant past. 

Exposure to Western thought prompted Chinese intellectuals to reimagine these Confucian ideals for modern conditions. Both the late Qing reformer Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and his political opponent, the aspiring democrat Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), endorsed dàtóng as the ultimate goal of their political programs (Kang redefined “moderate prosperity” as a social stage that would immediately precede dàtóng). Mao Zedong equated dàtóng with the promise of communism, arguing that his revolution would create the “conditions where classes, state power and political parties will die out very naturally.” Mao predicted that once the proletariat’s internal class enemies had been defeated “China can develop steadily, under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party, from an agricultural into an industrial country, and from a new-democratic into a socialist and communist society, [and then] can abolish classes and realize dàtóng” (Mao 1949). 

It is against this backdrop that Deng Xiaoping revived the idea of “moderate prosperity” as an achievable alternative to utopia. In a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira, Deng explained that “moderate prosperity” was the CPC’s mid-term goal for the modernization of China. “Even if we reach [moderate prosperity],” he confessed, “we will still be a backward nation compared to Western countries. However, at that point China will be a country with comparative prosperity and our people will enjoy a much higher standard of living than they do now” (Deng 1979). For party apparatchiks used to the grandiose plans of the Mao era, the new slogan was a remarkably honest assessment of China’s national conditions and served as a realistic goal for national development. Deng even pegged his version of moderate prosperity to a specific dollar amount: China would be a moderately prosperous society when it had per capita gross national income (GNI) of $800 to $1,000 USD.

The economic boom years forced a reassessment of the phrase’s meaning. Though China’s GNI per capita reached $800 in 1998, stark disparity between urban and rural economic had emerged and many regions of China remained in extreme poverty. It was evident that Deng’s index was insufficient to capture the full scope of what a moderately prosperous society would look like. As Jiang Zemin remarked, “The moderately prosperous life we are leading is still at a low level, it is not all-inclusive and is very uneven” (Jiang 2002). In 1997, he expanded the concept to encompass a more holistic set of goals: GDP growth, rural development, improved living standards, the implementation of a social security system, the strengthening of governing institutions and education, poverty alleviation, and protection of the environment. Jiang codified these goals with the new slogan “comprehensively [全面] building a moderately prosperous society.” Jiang further stated that this all around version of the moderately prosperous society would be achieved by 2020.   

Xi Jinping endorsed “comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society” as key to his own domestic platform, codifying it as the first item in a quartet of policy aims known as the FOUR COMPREHENSIVES. He often articulated this goal as a battle to eradicate extreme poverty. In Xi’s words, "it is a solemn promise made by our party to ensure that poor people and poor areas will enter a moderately prosperous society together with the rest of the country“ (State Council Information Office 2021). 

In early 2021, the Communist Party of China declared that this promise had been fulfilled. The battle was over: extreme poverty had been officially eradicated from China, and moderate prosperity has been officially extended throughout the country. A host of critics pounced on these pronouncements, pointing to gaps between official rhetoric and ground realities in China’s poorest regions. Yet declaring the mission accomplished was less about self-congratulations on the part of party leaders than an urgent sense the Party needed to reorient itself around a new set of goals. REFORM AND OPENING had made China rich: now it was time for China to become strong. Accordingly, the first item of the Four Comprehensives was changed from “comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society" to "comprehensively building a modern socialist country [全面建设社会主义现代化国家]."

See also: DENG XIAOPING THEORY; FOUR COMPREHENSIVES; INITIAL STAGE OF SOCIALISM; ONE CENTER, TWO BASIC TASKS; PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT ARE THE THEMES OF THE TIMES; PERIOD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY; REFORM AND OPENING.

Leadership Core
领导核心

In Leninist political systems the authority of a party leader does not always align with his formal position in a communist party's hierarchy. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping exercised immense power despite retiring from all official leadership positions; in contrast, the authority of men like Zhao Ziyang and Hu Jintao was tightly circumscribed despite their selection as General Secretary. The concept of the “leadership core” provides one way for party members to recognize the exceptional standing of a paramount leader without reference to his formal position in the Party. Under this schema, a leader of unusual historical significance will be labeled the “core” [核心] of his leadership cohort.

Xi Jinping is the acknowledged core of the Party today. He was not always honored with this title: it was not until the 6th PLENUM of the 18th CENTRAL COMMITTEE—some four years into Xi’s tenure as formal leader of the Communist Party of China—that state media described Xi Jinping as the core leader of his era.

A speech given by Xi Jinping in early 2013 provides a typical example of the way this title is employed in communist rhetoric. In a ceremony commemorating Hu Jintao’s leadership of the Party, Xi Jinping told the representatives at the People’s Congress that 

Under the leadership of the Party’s first generation of collective leadership with Comrade Mao Zedong as the core, the Party’s second generation of collective leadership with Comrade Deng Xiaoping as the core, the Party’s third generation of collective leadership with Comrade Jiang Zemin as the core, and the Party’s Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as the General Secretary, people of all ethnic groups in the country have worked together, persevered, and overcome various difficulties and obstacles on the path of progress. (Xi 2013)

As this passage makes clear, not all leaders deserve “core” status. The modest achievements and limited power of Hu Jintao vis a vis other leading party members of his era denies Hu this honor. Hu’s historical role only merits the mention of his formal party title, that of “General Secretary.”  

The origins of the “core” designation are found in the early years of the Deng era. Mao was never referred to as the “core” of a collective leadership cohort during his tenure. He preferred titles—such as the “People’s Leader” [人民领袖]—that elevated him far above other members of the revolutionary generation, and which justified the concentration of power in his own hands. For Deng Xiaoping, this was one of the central errors of the late Mao era. As with many other leading cadres, Deng attributed his suffering during the Cultural Revolution to Mao’s incontestable authority. These men hoped that “collective leadership” [集体领导] might preserve the Party from similar disasters in the future. “The overconcentration of power,” Deng said in 1980, “hinders the practice of socialist democracy and of the Party’s democratic centralism, impedes the progress of socialist construction and prevents us from taking full advantage of collective wisdom” (Deng 1980). 

Formalizing mechanisms for collective leadership and instituting “intra-party democracy” [党内民主] was thus a key priority of Deng’s early reform agenda. The 12th Party Congress of 1982 abolished the post of Chairman of the Central Committee, a position that many deemed too powerful. Instead the Party would be formally led by a General Secretary with a ten-year term limit.  Other reforms intended to constrain and distribute political power across the Party included new mandatory retirement ages, the regular holding of party congresses, and the staggered filling of the POLITBURO seats every five years.

Yet Deng’s attempt to institutionalize the CPC power structure was fatally undermined by his own style of leadership. In the 1980s Deng twice identified potential successors and elevated them to the position of General Secretary. Despite their formal authority, the actual power of these chosen heirs was limited. Anytime a contentious issue divided the Party, Deng’s intervention was necessary for a solution to be implemented. On two occasions this solution included the removal of an uncooperative General Secretary from office. Events like these repeatedly offered Deng Xiaoping a choice between procedural integrity and political victory. Deng consistently chose the latter. Aligning policy and personnel with his own preferences behind the scenes weakened the formal institutions, procedures, and norms he hoped would eventually govern the Party in his place. 

It was in this context that the concept of the leadership core was introduced to the Party. Deng Xiaoping neither possessed nor aspired to absolute power: his influence flowed from his indispensability. Loyalty to Deng was the one nexus point holding the various factions of the Party together. Thus Deng concluded that “for the second generation of leaders, I can be considered the core, but the group is still a collective” (Deng 1989a).

In 1989, Deng began working to pass this status on to a new successor. Four days before the denouement of the Tiananmen demonstrations, Deng negotiated with Chen Yun and other party elders of his generation to choose the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. Jiang Zemin was their choice. Soon after, Deng further argued that Jiang must be treated as the future “core” of the party’s collective leadership. “A collective leadership must have a core; without a core, no leadership can be strong enough,” said Deng.

The core of our first generation of collective leadership was Chairman Mao. Because of that core, the “cultural revolution” did not bring the Communist Party down. Actually, I am the core of the second generation. Because of this core, even though we changed two of our leaders, the Party’s exercise of leadership was not affected but always remained stable. The third generation of collective leadership must have a core too; all you comrades present here should be keenly aware of that necessity and act accordingly. You should make an effort to maintain the core — Comrade Jiang Zemin, as you have agreed. From the very first day it starts to work, the new Standing Committee should make a point of establishing and maintaining this collective leadership and its core (Deng 1989b). 

Though Jiang Zemin would govern under the shadow of Deng Xiaoping for another five years, the slow passing of the revolutionary generation gave Jiang the opportunity to fill critical party positions with his own people. Jiang’s consolidation of power proved enduring. By the time Jiang’s successor, Hu Jintao, rose to the position of CPC General Secretary in November 2002, both the POLITBURO and the CENTRAL COMMITTEE were stocked with Jiang’s men. Jiang himself would stay on as Chairman of the Central Military Commission for several years into Hu’s term. No one was under the illusion that Hu Jintao was the “core” of anything. Instead, his role in the collective leadership was usually described with the phrase “the Party CENTER with Comrade Hu Jintao as General Secretary” [以胡锦涛同志为总书记的党中央]. 

Xi Jinping successfully centralized power in a fashion Hu Jintao never managed. Through bureaucratic restructuring and a colossal anti-corruption drive that removed hundreds of thousands of Party members from the rolls, Xi remade the Communist Party in his own image. He used this power to roll back Deng era norms of collective leadership. Just one year after Xi obtained official recognition as the “core,” the Party abolished the term limit of the General Secretary. At the conclusion of the Party Congress where this occurred, Cai Qi–a Xi loyalist who would soon be elevated to the PBSC–referred to Xi Jinping as the Leader, or lingxiu [领袖], of the Party. Up to this point this grandiose title had only ever been applied to Mao Zedong and his designated successor, Hua Guofeng. Cai maintained that:

In the past five years, historic changes have taken place in the cause of the Party and the state, all of which stem from the fact that General Secretary Xi Jinping, the strong leadership core, is the helmsman [掌舵] of the whole Party. General Secretary Xi Jinping is worthy of being a wise leader [英明领袖], the chief architect of reform, opening up and modernization in the New Era, and the core of this generation of the Party. At all times and in all circumstances, we must resolutely safeguard the authority and centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as its core. (Cai 2017).   

Thus the valence of the term “core” has shifted as the norms of the Deng era have eroded away. If in the Reform era the “core” designation signaled a break from the Maoist past, associating Deng’s pre-eminence with the more restrained language of intra-party democracy, in Xi’s NEW ERA the phrase is deployed in the same breath as titles once reserved for Mao himself, such as “helmsman” and "Leader.” Three decades after its introduction the concept of the leadership core lives on. The associated ideals of collective leadership do not. 

Central Committee
中国共产党中央委员会

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, until 1927 called the Central Executive Committee (中央执行委员会), is the central administrative and decision-making body of the Chinese party-state. 

In the post-Mao era members of the Central Committee have been elected by the National Congress of the CPC every five years. These elections are a confirmation vote based on a candidate list where the number of candidates slightly exceeds the number of available seats. Usually only 8% to 12% of candidates are not elected to the Central Committee; it is customary for the Committee to include the governors and party secretaries of China’s provinces, the heads of central government bodies, major SOEs, and national party organizations, and high ranking military officers in the PLA among its members. 

The Central Committee has the nominal power to elect the members of the Secretariat, Politburo, and its Standing Committee, but in practice it merely confirms candidates pre-selected by the top leadership.  At select points in modern Chinese history–such as the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Party Congress–meetings of the Central Committee, called PLENUMS, have served as forums for substantive intra-party debates. More often the Central Committee makes small adjustments to plans already agreed on by the POLITBURO ahead of time. Documents drafted during Central Committee meetings are among the most authoritative in the Chinese policy process; each condenses the various guidelines, policies, and tasks issued since the previous plenum into a baseline directive for the entire party.

See also: CENTER, THE; PLENUM

The National Congress of the Communist Party of China
中国共产党全国代表大会

The National Congress of the Communist Party of China—commonly referred to as the “Party Congress”—is in principle the highest decision-making body in Chinese politics. Assembled for a week long session every five years in the Hall of the People in Beijing, thousands of delegates from across China comprise each Party Congress. On paper this assembly possesses the authority to amend the CPC Charter, determine national policy, and select the membership of the Party’s highest leadership organs. In reality, questions of personnel and policy are settled by THE CENTER before any Party Congress convenes. Formal decisions made by a congress, the content of reports given to the assembly, and the behavior of individual delegates are all carefully choreographed months ahead of time. The function of a Party Congress is thus more performative than deliberative. A smoothly run Party Congress signals the unity of the Party leadership, while the massive propaganda apparatus mobilized for each congress broadcasts shifts in policy or ideology to the Party membership writ large.  

The first Party Congress was held in 1921. It lasted two days and was comprised of only 13 delegates. Assembled in times of revolution, war, or domestic upheaval, the subsequent nine congresses were not held at regular intervals, and varied greatly in location, format, and the number of delegates assembled. The more norms that govern the Party Congress today can be traced to the post-Mao Party Congresses helmed by Hua Guofeng and by Deng Xiaoping. Determined to smooth leadership transitions and strengthen what he called “intra-party democracy” [党内民主], Deng insisted that Party Congresses occur at regular intervals to allow for orderly changes in party leadership. 

Leadership transitions remain the most important task of the Party Congress. The congress confirms the membership of the CENTRAL COMMITTEE, Central Military Commission [中央军事委员会], and Central Commission for Discipline Inspection [中央纪律检查委员会]. Though ostensibly elected during the congress itself, this leadership cohort is chosen by negotiations between sitting leaders and retired ‘party elders’ [长老] in the months leading up to a Party Congress. The vote itself is largely ceremonial: cadres selected to join one of these leadership organs often claim the seats reserved for central leaders before any formal vote has taken place. 

The central event of any Party Congress is the presentation of the incumbent Central Committee’s “political report.” [政治报告]. The agenda of the Party Congress is not organized around specific policy problems; instead it centers on the delivery of various reports and resolutions which are subsequently discussed and adopted by the delegates. The political report, customarily delivered as a televised speech by the General Secretary at the opening of the congress, is the most important item on this agenda. Every political report recapitulates the victories and setbacks the Party experienced over the previous five years, announces changes in the Party’s ideological line, and establishes the goals intended to guide all party and state activity in the years to come.

 This is the most authoritative document in the Chinese political system. Its contents are crafted with care. The drafting process often lasts an entire year. It begins with the formation of a “drafting group” [起草小组] typically led by the man who will serve as General Secretary after the conclusion of the congress. Before it is delivered hundreds of leading cadres provide feedback on the sections of the report most relevant to their responsibilities. This pre-congress drafting process matters more for the substance of party policy than anything that occurs during the congress itself. It is during this stage that key ideological questions are settled and consensus for the party platform is built. The relative importance of each stage is seen in length of the documents each produces. The longest political reports are more than sixty pages in their official English translation. In contrast, the resolution produced at a Party Congress to endorse a political report generally fits on a single page. 

Though its elections are rigged and the policies it will endorse are decided months before hand, a tremendous amount of pomp and ceremony attends every Party Congress. This pageantry has a purpose. The Party Congress embodies core ideals of the Communist Party of China. These include loyalty, unity, and an unwavering commitment to shared purpose. Committing the entire party to a shared purpose is the ultimate aim of this assembly. In the days, months, and years that follow the Party Congress, communist leaders and propagandists exhort cadres to study the central “themes” and implement the “spirit” [精神] of the most recent congress. By these means party leaders steer the activities entire Chinese party-state.  

See also: CENTER, THE; CENTRAL COMMITTEE; PLENUM; POLITBURO; LEADERSHIP CORE

需要抓紧谋划国家安全战略,通过积极主动的顶层设计与战略运筹,助推国家安全工作与民族复兴伟业。

中共十八届三中全会决定设立国家安全委员会(以下简称“国安委”)意义非同凡响,其有助于以安全保发展、实现发展与安全并举;有助于统筹国内与国际两个大局、贯通外事与内事;有助于打破部门利益羁绊、维护整体国家利益;有助于中国从容参与大国战略博弈、引领世界和平发展大潮。

设立“国安委”是具有中国特色的国家安全工作体制机制创新,标志着国家安全工作进入了 “中央强有力统筹、跨部门整合、从战略上主动运筹” 的历史新阶段,需要抓紧谋划国家安全战略,通过积极主动的顶层设计与战略运筹,助推国家安全工作与民族复兴伟业。

当前国家安全环境

对于设立“国安委”,习近平总书记在会上作了专门说明。他开宗明义地指出,“国家安全和社会稳定是改革发展的前提。只有国家安全和社会稳定,改革发展才能不断推进”。关于设立“国安委”的必要性与紧迫性,习总书记又指出,“当前,我国面临对外维护国家主权、安全、发展利益,对内维护政治安全和社会稳定的双重压力,各种可以预见和难以预见的风险因素明显增多。而我们的安全工作体制机制还不能适应维护国家安全的需要,需要搭建一个强有力的平台统筹国家安全工作。设立国家安全委员会,加强对国家安全工作的集中统一领导,已是当务之急”。

习总书记还明确了“国安委”的主要职责,即“制定和实施国家安全战略,推进国家安全法治建设,制定国家安全工作方针政策,研究解决国家安全工作中的重大问题”。其中,制定“国家安全战略”亦被提上议事日程。国家安全战略既是一项庞大的系统工程,对中国而言更是一种新生事物,需要集思广益、群策群力、超前谋划。

全盘审视和谋划国家安全战略,首先需要准确把握当前中国国家安全形势与环境的总体特征。具体而言大致包括如下三点:

一是“内忧”与“外患”并存。在全方位对外开放条件下与全球化、信息化、网络化时代,影响国家安全的内部因素与外部因素互动频繁,乃至产生联动效应。对中国而言,作为快速崛起的社会主义发展中大国,一方面“外患”有增无减、复杂嬗变、层出不穷,另一方面,影响国内改革发展稳定大局的“内忧”仍然存在,国家安全工作的重心仍在国内。

二是国家安全的“内涵”更加复杂,“外延”更加宽广。内涵更复杂是指国家安全的主体虽基本维持不变,即作为整体的主权国家及其中央政府,但客体却越来越多,既包括作为个体的位于中国境内的中外法人与个人,也包括位于境外的中国法人与个人。随着中国企业与公民大踏步地“走出去”,中国国家安全的边界日益向外延伸,维护与拓展“海外利益”日趋成为中国国家安全的一项重大工作; 外延更宽广则是指国家安全所涵盖的领域越来越多、越来越广。

三是传统与非传统安全并存,传统安全仍吃重,非传统安全更复杂。维护政治与社会稳定、巩固政权安全、捍卫国家统一与领土完整等传统安全压力不减,恐怖主义、网络安全、气候变化等非传统安全压力增大,例如“东伊运”幕后指使实施的北京天安门金水桥恐怖袭击事件,以及美国国安局前雇员斯诺登曝光的美对华网络渗透等。

其次,需要分辨国家安全所面临的机遇与挑战,尤需厘清国家安全威胁的轻重缓急。

具体而言,中国国家安全面临的机遇主要有二:

一是中国自身综合实力不断增强,中国特色社会主义政治与经济体制更加成熟、具有很大的优越性,以习近平为总书记的新一届中央领导集体统筹内外、励精图治、放眼全球、更加主动有为;

二是全球化与多极化难以逆转,世界力量对比“新陈代谢”与“新升旧降”对中国有利。

中国国家安全面临的挑战大致包括如下五点:

一是国内转型期社会矛盾累积,各类群体性事件多发易发,外部敌对势力趁机插手利用,维护社会和谐稳定与统筹推进改革难度增大。

二是“台独”、“藏独”、“东突独”等分裂势力蠢蠢欲动,国际反华势力对其加以扶持利用,反分裂、反恐、反宗教极端主义任务艰巨。

三是中国加速崛起改变了国际与地区格局,引发西方大国不安不满与周边个别国家反弹对抗。战略重心“东移”亚太的美国竭力维持世界霸权与亚太主导权,中美博弈更加敏感复杂激烈。日本不甘被中国全面赶超,企图摆脱和平宪法掣肘、实现军事大国野心。美日同盟加深、彼此相互利用,导致周边环境的“安全系数”下降,海洋争端加剧。

四是中国经济持续中高速增长严重依赖于境外能源资源进口与国际市场需求,经济安全存在很大的脆弱性,容易受制于人。

五是全球气候变化与中国生态环境恶化叠加,重大自然灾害趋于频繁、危害加大。

战略方针与战略目标

维护国家安全的战略方针宜采“辩证统筹、古为今用、主动运筹、循序渐进”的原则,其要有三:

一是强化与贯彻“综合安全”、“大安全”理念,统筹国内安全与国际安全,统筹传统与非传统安全,统筹应对现实威胁与长远挑战。

二是大力弘扬中华优秀传统“战略文化”,中国传统的政治智慧与谋略思想博大精深、堪称“战略宝库”,理应系统整理、古为今用,尤其是以西汉(从文景之治到武宣之政)、盛唐(从贞观之治到开元盛世)与清朝前期(康雍乾)三大盛世为代表,义利兼顾、德力俱足、刚柔并济的“务实王道”,也值得致力于实现中华民族伟大复兴“中国梦”的当代中国所发扬光大,包括软硬兼施、恩威并施、合作与斗争并举、维护自身利益与承担国际责任兼顾。

三是善于利用矛盾、借力打力、纵横捭阖,应主动谋划、积极博弈,防止被动挨整,制人而非制于人。

在此战略方针下,应由近及远、制定分阶段的国家安全战略目标,大致包括以下四个时间段:

一是从现在开始的未来5年(2013--2017年),目标是完善国家安全工作体制机制,增强国家安全工作手段与能力,为全面深化改革、保持经济中高速增长、推进发展方式转变创造有利的国内国际安全环境,为“十二五”与“十三五”规划顺利实施提供强有力的安全保障,捍卫主权统一与领土完整,确保周边安全环境总体和平安宁,稳步拓展海外利益。

二是在“第一个一百年”即建党一百周年前夕(2020年),维护好“重要战略机遇期”,“推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化”,为实现“全面建成小康社会”战略目标创造有利的国内国际安全环境,逐步成为周边乃至国际安全环境的主动塑造者。

三是在建党百年与建国百年这两个“一百年”之间的近30年“空档期”(2021--2049年),稳扎稳打,促进国内长治久安,更加积极主动地塑造国际安全环境,增加对国际安全“公共产品”的提供,实现国内与国际安全两个大局良性互动、相得益彰,并在此期间以适当方式实现国家完全的统一与领土完整。

四是在“第二个一百年”即建国一百周年之际与本世纪中叶(2050年),为实现成为“中等发达国家”的战略目标、实现中华民族伟大复兴的“中国梦”创造有利的国内国际安全环境,成为周边安全新秩序的主要建构者与国际安全新秩序的主要参与者。

战略布局与战略重点

国家安全战略布局应坚持“内外兼修、内主外辅、全面推进、重点突出”的原则,统筹兼顾传统与非传统安全,综合运用常态化管理、事先预警与应急处置、危机管控,具体与扼要而言,包括以下八大领域的安全战略:

一是政治安全。强化反分裂、反暴恐、反宗教极端主义斗争,通过全面深化改革扶助弱势群体、增强公平正义、化解社会矛盾,完善民族与宗教政策,加大反腐败制度建设,不断提升中国共产党的执政能力,维护社会大局稳定、总体和谐与政权安全。

二是战略安全。全面与均衡发展与各大国的关系,积极推进中美新型大国关系、扩大合作面、管理竞争面。稳步深化中俄全面战略协作伙伴关系,促进中欧互利平等合作。完善“金砖国家”机制,做大做强新兴大国互信合作,防止被西方大国分化,防止被西方大国联手压制。

三是周边安全。完善地缘战略布局,统筹经略陆海、着力开拓海洋。坚决遏制日本右倾化,打好全面赶超日本的“新持久战”,防止美日联手使坏。有效处置周边热点、难点,妥善化解南海争端,加大非传统安全合作,增强周边安全话语权。

四是军事安全。扎实推进中国军事现代化,强化细化军事斗争准备,增强军事威慑力,坚决捍卫领土完整。加强军事外交,增进军事互信。对海洋、太空、网络、极地等“全球公地”加大投入,抢占未来制高点。

五是经济安全。大力扶持民族产业与自主品牌,积极投身世界新科技、新产业与新能源革命,逐步减少对外能源资源依赖,通过改革与强化风险管理维护金融安全,稳步推进周边经济合作机制建设与全球自贸区建设,积极参与全球经济治理,扩大国际经贸规则制定权,预防TPP(跨太平洋伙伴关系协议)与TTIP(跨大西洋贸易与投资伙伴协议)的不利影响,通过制定并实施“走出去战略”强化海外利益保护。

六是文化安全。坚持“以我为主、古为今用、洋为中用、综合创新”,打造有说服力、吸引力、亲和力、竞争力的当代中国核心价值观,强化公民教育与传统文化教育,统筹内宣与外宣,改进网络时代舆论斗争方式方法,有效增强党和政府公信力与话语权,做大做强民族文化产业,主动应对西方强势价值观与意识形态渗透。

七是信息网络安全。习总书记在十八届三中全会上专门指出,“网络和信息安全牵涉到国家安全和社会稳定,是我们面临的新的综合性挑战”。“现行管理体制存在明显弊端,主要是多头管理、职能交叉、权责不一、效率不高”。“特别是面对传播快、影响大、覆盖广、社会动员能力强的微博、微信等社交网络和即时通信工具用户的快速增长,如何加强网络法制建设和舆论引导,确保网络信息传播秩序和国家安全、社会稳定,已经成为摆在我们面前的现实突出问题”。强调要“整合相关机构职能,形成从技术到内容、从日常安全到打击犯罪的互联网管理合力,确保网络正确运用和安全”。

八是其他非传统安全。主要包括公共卫生与食品安全,应预防与有效处置重大疫情,如正在中东肆虐的新型呼吸道病毒;以及生态环境安全,应加强灾害预防与抢险救灾工作,防止极端气候与其他重大自然灾害引发严重破坏,如近期重创菲律宾的“海燕”台风等。

It is necessary to immediately formulate a national security strategy by proactively initiating high-level planning and strategic goal-setting to strengthen the work of national security and further the great cause of National Rejuvenation.

The decision of the Third Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee1 to establish the [Central] National Security Commission (hereafter abbreviated as the “CNSC”) has extraordinary significance. It will safeguard the security [environment] for development and is thereby conducive to both development and security; It will coordinate [our approaches] in both the domestic and international arenas and integrate external and internal affairs; it will break down the barriers of departmental interests, and thereby advance the interests of the country as a whole; it will equip China to participate with ease in the strategic great games of the major powers and to lead the tide of peaceful development in the world.

The establishment of the CNSC is an innovation in the work processes and institutional architecture of national security with Chinese characteristics. It marks the point where national security work has entered a new historic stage of “strong coordination by the Center, cross-departmental integration, and active strategic planning.” It is necessary to pay close attention to the planning of a national security strategy, by proactively initiating top-level planning and strategic goal-setting, in order to strengthen the work of national security and further the cause of National Rejuvenation.

The Current National Security Environment

General Secretary Xi Jinping offered a special explanation of the establishment of the CNSC at the [Third] Plenum. From the outset, he made clear that “national security and social stability are the prerequisites for reform and development. Reform and development cannot advance without national security and social stability.” Regarding the necessity and urgency of establishing the CNSC, General Secretary Xi further pointed out that “at the present, our state faces the dual pressure of safeguarding our national sovereignty, security, and development interests from external [threats] while also safeguarding political security and social stability from internal [threats]. Various foreseeable and unforeseeable risk factors have clearly increased significantly. Moreover, the institutional architecture and processes of [our] security work are still unable to adapt to the requirements of safeguarding national security. A strong platform needs to be built to coordinate national security work. The establishment of the [Central] National Security Commission to strengthen, centralize, and unify leadership over national security work is a top priority.”2

General Secretary Xi also clarified the main responsibilities of the CNSC: namely, “to formulate and implement a national security strategy, promote the construction of a legal foundation for state security, formulate guidelines and policies for the work of national security, and study solutions to major problems in national security work.” Among them, formulating a “national security strategy” has also been put on the agenda.3 The national security strategy is not only a massive systemic project, but is also a new project for China, and it requires [us] to profit from a wide range of suggestions, gain from the wisdom of many, and stay at the cutting edge of the planning process. 

To comprehensively evaluate and formulate a national security strategy, we must first accurately grasp the overall characteristics of the current national security environment. Concretely, it roughly includes the following three points:

The first is the coexistence of “internal worries” and “foreign troubles.” Under the conditions of comprehensive opening to the outside world and in the era of globalization, informatization, and network-ization, the internal and external factors that affect national security frequently intersect, and have interlinked consequences. [A]s a rapidly developing socialist country, China faces a twofold challenge: on the one hand, “foreign troubles” are increasing and becoming more complex. [O]n the other hand, there are still “internal worries” that affect the overall landscape of domestic reform, development and stability. [T]he focus of national security work is still internal.

Second, the “internal content” of national security is becoming increasingly complex while its “external implications” are becoming broader. The increasing complexity of its “internal content” refers to the reality that while the “subject” of national security remains basically unchanged—that is, the sovereignty of the state and its central government as a whole—the “objects” of national security are growing more numerous, which include [both] Chinese and foreign legal entities and individuals within our border, as well as Chinese and foreign legal entities and individuals outside of our border. As Chinese enterprises and citizens “go out” with great strides, the boundaries of China’s national security extend further outward. Maintaining and expanding “overseas interests” has gradually become a major task for China’s national security. Broader “external implications” refer to the reality that the domain of national security is increasing and expanding.

The third is the coexistence of traditional and nontraditional security. [T]raditional security is still important, but nontraditional security is more complex. Traditional security pressures such as maintaining political and social stability, consolidating the security of our sovereign power, and safeguarding national unity and territorial integrity remain unabated, while nontraditional security pressures such as terrorism, cybersecurity, and climate change have increased. Take for example the Turkestan Islamic Party’s terrorist attack on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as well as the [extent of] the United States’ network penetration into China that was exposed by former NSA employee Edward Snowden, and so forth.4

Next, it is necessary to distinguish the opportunities and challenges facing [our] national security. In particular, [it is necessary] to clarify how to rank and prioritize different national security threats.

Concretely, there are two opportunities that China's national security [system] can exploit:

First, China's comprehensive strength is continuously increasing. The socialist political and economic system with Chinese characteristics is maturing and possesses great advantages. The new central leadership with Xi Jinping as General Secretary are coordinating internal and external affairs, striving for excellence as they perfect their governance, [keeping] a global perspective, and acting proactively.

Second, globalization and multi-polarization are difficult to reverse. When comparing [strengths and weaknesses of] the world powers, the dynamic of “rise of the new and fall of the old” is beneficial to China.

The challenges facing China’s national security are roughly encompassed in the following five points:

First, social contradictions accumulated during the domestic transition period. [V]arious kinds of mass incidents occur frequently.5 [E]xternal hostile forces have taken advantage of [these incidents] to meddle [inside China], making it more difficult to maintain social harmony and stability and consolidate and promote reform.

Second, separatist forces such as the Taiwan independence movement,” "the Tibetan independence movement,” and "the East Turkestan independence movement" are agitated to stir up troubles, and [they are being] supported and exploited by anti-Chinese forces abroad. The task of countering separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism is daunting.

Third, China's accelerated rise has changed the international and regional landscape, causing anxiety and dissatisfaction among Western powers as well as [moments of] backlash and confrontation with certain neighboring countries. The United States, whose strategic center of gravity has "shifted eastward” to the Asia-Pacific region, is striving to maintain global hegemony and predominance in the Asia-Pacific region. The contest between China and the United States has become more sensitive, complex and fierce. Not resigned to being completely overtaken by China, Japan is trying to undo the constraints of its pacifist constitution and realize its ambitions as a military power. The deepening of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the two power’s growing efforts to use the other [for their own ends] have led to a decrease in the "safety coefficient” of the surrounding environment and have intensified maritime disputes.6

Fourth, the sustained medium to high level of growth of the Chinese economy is heavily dependent on the import of overseas energy resources and demand on the international market. Our economic security is very vulnerable, and can be easily controlled by others.

Fifth, global climate change and the deterioration of China's ecological environment are superimposed on the other factors, and major natural disasters are becoming more frequent and damaging.

Strategic Guidelines and Strategic Objectives

The strategic guidelines for safeguarding national security are: a dialectical and integrated approach, using the past for the sake of the present, proactive operations planning, and gradual progress [over time]. This has three requirements.

First, it requires strengthening and implementing "Comprehensive Security” and "Overall Security”; 7 [this means] integrating our approach to domestic security and international security, integrating our approach to traditional and non-traditional security, and integrating our responses to present threats and long-term challenges.

Second, it requires vigorously promote the excellent tradition of Chinese "strategic culture.” Traditional Chinese political wisdom and strategic thought are broad and profound, and can even be called "a treasure chest of strategy.” It should be studied systematically so that the past can serve the present. Exemplars of [this culture] include the reign of three prosperous eras of the Western Han Dynasty (from the rule of Emperors Wen and Jing to the rule of Emperors Wu and Xuan], the Tang Dynasty (from the rule of Zhenguan [Emperor Taizong] to the prosperous age of Kaiyuan [Emperor Xuanzong], and the early Qing Dynasty (the rule of Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong). [These reigns] exemplify "a pragmatic ‘Way of the true King’” that combines justice with profit, virtue and strength, and power and flexibility.8 This way [of kingship] is worthy of contemporary China, committed [as it is] to realizing the "China Dream” of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation, including both hard and soft power, tempering justice with mercy, cooperation with struggle, and striking a balance between safeguarding its own interests and assuming international responsibilities.

Third, it requires being good at exploiting contradictions, leveraging our strength to maximum effect, utilizing geopolitical stratagems and diplomatic maneuvers, planning and moving with initiative, preventing [situations where we] are passive targets, and controlling others instead of being controlled by others.

Following the guideline above, the strategic objectives should include both short-term and long-term goals, falling in four time periods:

First, over the next five years (2013-2017): our objective is to improve the institutional architecture and processes of national security work, enhance the means and capabilities of national security work, and create opportunities for comprehensively deepening reforms, maintaining medium-to-high-speed economic growth, and promoting the transformation of developmental methods for use in a favorable domestic and international security environments. The objective is to provide a strong security guarantee for the successful implementation of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan” and "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan,” safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, ensure overall peace and tranquility in the security environment of our periphery, and steadily expand overseas interests.

Second, by the eve of the “first hundred years,” the centenary of the founding of the Party (2020): maintain the “Important Period of Strategic Opportunity” and “promote the modernization of the state governing system and capacity,”9 in order to achieve “the completion of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.” The strategic goal is to create a favorable domestic and international security environment, and gradually become an active sculptor of the international security environment on our periphery and internationally.

Third, during the “30-year gap” between the centennial of the Party and the centennial of the People's Republic of China (2021-2049):  our objective is to ensure stable domestic governance, sculpt the international security environment in a more proactive manner,  increase the provision of "public goods" for international security, and realize a positive and complementary relationship between the broader domestic and international security landscapes. Meanwhile, during this period we need to achieve complete national unity and territorial integrity in an appropriate manner.

Fourth, by the bi-centennial of  the People's Republic of China and the middle of this century (2050): our strategic objective is to become a “middle developed country,” realize the “China Dream” of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation, and create a favorable domestic and international security environment. [China should] become a major architect of the new regional security order and a major participant within a new international security.

Strategic Deployment and Strategic Focus Points

The strategic deployment of the national security strategy should uphold the principles of: balancing effort in both the internal and external domains, with a focus on the internal as the top priority and the external as a secondary priority; advancing on all fronts, while maintaining focus on prominent areas; taking both traditional and non-traditional security into account; making extensive use of standardized management, preemptive warning and emergency response, and crisis management and control. To put it more concretely, [our policy] should focus on the following eight domains of security strategy:

First: Political Security. To maintain social stability on a broad scale, a more total harmony, and the security of our sovereign power,10 we must strengthen the fight against separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism, help populations that are vulnerable [to infiltration or indoctrination] through the comprehensive deepening of reform, the promotion of fairness and justice, resolving social contradictions, perfecting ethnic and religious policy, continuing to construct institutional procedures to counter corruption, and continuously improving the governing capabilities of the Communist Party of China.

Second: Strategic Security. We must develop relations with major powers in a comprehensive and balanced manner. We must actively promote Sino-US relations according to the New Model of Great Power Relations, expanding areas of cooperation, and managing areas of competition. We must steadily deepen our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination with Russia,11 and promote “coordination based on benefit and equality” between China and the EU. We must improve the “BRICS” mechanism, expand and strengthen mutual trust and cooperation among emerging powers, prevent them from being divided by Western powers, and prevent them from being repressed by Western powers.

Third: Security on the Periphery. We must perfect our geo-strategic deployment, taking an integrated approach to our position both on land and at sea, while focusing our efforts on opening up new maritime capacity. We must resolutely resist Japan's rightward shift, fight a “new protracted war”13 to catch up with Japan in a comprehensive manner, and prevent the United States and Japan from joining forces. We must effectively manage the hotspots and problems on our periphery, properly resolve disputes in the South China Sea, increase non-traditional security cooperation, and enhance our peripheral security discursive power.

Fourth: Military Security. We must steadily advance China's military modernization, strengthen and refine preparations for military struggle, enhance military deterrence, and resolutely defend our territorial integrity. [We must] strengthen military diplomacy and enhance mutual trust; As for the sea, outer space, the internet, the polar regions, and other “global commons,” we must increase our investment [in them] in order to seize the commanding heights of the future.

Fifth: Economic Security. We must vigorously support national industries and domestic brands, actively invest in state-of-the-art technologies, new industries and the new energy revolution, gradually reduce dependence on external energy resources, maintain financial security through reforming and strengthening risk management; [we must] steadily promote the construction of economic cooperation in our periphery and in global free trade zones; we must construct and actively participate in global economic governance, expand the right to formulate international economic and trade rules, prevent the adverse effects of TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), and strengthen the protection of our overseas interests by formulating and implementing the “Go Out Policy.”

Sixth: Cultural Security. We must uphold “putting our own autonomy at the center, use the past to serve the present, use Western ideas to serve China, and synthesize [both Chinese traditional culture and foreign ideas] in order to innovate.” [We must] create core Chinese values that are convincing, attractive, competitive [with outside ideals], and which have the power to make others identify with them. We must strengthen civic education and traditional cultural education, and take an integrated approach to internal and external propaganda, improve our methods and manner in the struggle for public opinion in the Internet age, effectively enhance the credibility and discursive power of the Party and the government, expand and strengthen national cultural industries, and proactively respond to the persistent intrusion of Western values ​​and ideology.

Seventh: Information and Network Security. At the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, General-Secretary Xi specifically pointed out that “network and information security involves national security and social stability and is a new comprehensive challenge that we face.” [He also said] “the current management system has obvious drawbacks, mainly redundancy in management, overlapping functions, gaps between decision-making authorities and management responsibilities, and inefficiency.” In face of the rapidly expanding user base of social networks and communication tools which instantly disseminates information, exerts great influence among a wide audience, and has the power to mobilize large masses (such as Wechat, Weibo, and so forth), we need to think about how to strengthen legal control, how to direct public opinion online, and how to maintain the orderly dissemination of information, as well as maintain state security and social stability. These questions have become increasingly pressing. [General-Secretary Xi] emphasizes the need to “integrate the functions of relevant institutions, form a joint force in internet management from technology to content, from daily security to combating crimes, and ensure the correct use and security of the internet.”

Eighth: Non-traditional Security. This mainly includes: public health and food safety; effectively dealing with with major epidemics, such as the new respiratory virus raging in the Middle East;14 and ecological security, which we should [manage by] strengthening disaster prevention and rescue/relief work to prevent the severe damage caused by extreme weather and other major natural disasters, such as Typhoon Haiyan, which recently hit the Philippines.15

1. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee was held in Beijing from November 9 to 12, 2013. The Plenum adopted the “Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform” and received to Xi Jinping’s statement on the “Decision.” 
2. See “zhonggong zhongyang guanyu quanmian shenhua gaige ruogan zhongda wenti de jueding 中共中央关于全面深化改革若干重大问题的决定 [Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform],” Xinhua, November 2013.
3. Since 2013, China has passed several national security laws and policies, including the 2015 National Security Law, the 2017 Cybersecurity Law, and the 2017 National Intelligence Law, which all aim to enhance China's ability to identify and counter potential threats to its national security. In addition, China has also passed a national security strategy that remains classified. For a concise overview of these developments, see Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,” China Leadership Monitor, 1 September 2022.
4. The two events listed here exemplify what the CPC identifies as “non-traditional” threats to national security. The first event was a terrorist attack that occurred in Tienanmen Square on October 28, 2013, when a man drove a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, killing five and injuring forty. China's security chief attributed the attack to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party, which subsequently claimed responsibility and threatened future attacks. The latter reference is to the surveillance operations of the  United State’s National Security Agency, which former CIA employee Edward Snowden leaked to South China Morning Post in 2013.
5. Social unrest in China increased at an alarming rate in the years before this essay was written. There are few incidents of public demonstrations, disruptive actions or riots occurred in the early 1980s. By 1993 this number had risen to 8,700 “mass incidents”; by 2005, their number had grown tenfold, to 87,000. Estimates for the number of public protests in 2010 range between 180,000 and 230,000. Christian Gobel and Lynette H. Ong, “Social Unrest in China,” Europe China Research and Advice Network, 2012.
6. Around the time this piece was published, the United States and Japan were reshaping and strengthening their alliance in response to security challenges in the Asia Pacific. In November 2001, the government of Junichiro Koizumi dispatched the Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Indian Ocean to provide logistical support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. In 2003, it sent forces to aid in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction efforts. These operations marked a period of increased defense cooperation between the U.S. and Japan. Later, during Shinzo Abe’s first term as prime minister between 2006 and 2007, he attempted to form the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD or “the quad”) – composed of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia.  Prime Minister Abe would use the template to push for an informal security framework to address Japan’s concerns regarding China’s growing power. Abe returned to power less than a year before this piece was published on a platform that put the threat posed by China to Japanese interests at the center of the election. The United States met his election with statements reaffirming America's commitment to defend Japan in the event of a military conflict over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Chain.
7. “Comprehensive security” and “overall security” refer to China's national security outlook that combines traditional and non-traditional security concerns and connects the country's economic development with its security strategies. Both first entered into wide circulation after the 18th Party's Congress. See “xue xi wang ping: jian chi xi tong si wei gou jian da an quan ge ju 学习网评:坚持系统思维构建大安全格局 [Study network comment: adhere to the system thinking to build a large security pattern],” Xinhua, December 2020.
8. During the Western Han Dynasty, there were three prosperous eras that spanned from the reign of Emperors Wen (180-157 BCE) and Jing (157-141 BCE) to the reign of Emperors Wu (141-87 BCE) and Xuan (74-48 BCE). The Tang Dynasty experienced a period of prosperity that started with the reign of Zhenguan under Emperor Taizong (627 -649 CE) and continued until the prosperous age of Kaiyuan under Emperor Xuanzong (712-741 CE). In the early Qing Dynasty, the reigns of Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong were particularly notable for their achievements and stability. The Kangxi era, which lasted from 1661 to 1722, is known for its expansion of the empire, while the Yongzheng era, which spanned from 1722 to 1735, was marked by economic and administrative reforms. Finally, the Qianlong era, which ran from 1735 to 1796, was characterized by cultural achievements and a period of relative stability.

On the “way of the true king” see our glossary entry HEGEMONISM.
9.  “The modernization of the national governing system and capacity” is an objective first proposed at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 12, 2013. One Chinese scholar dubs this objective the “fifth pillar” of modernization following the earlier pillars of modernization in industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology. See “Decision Of The Central Committee Of The Communist Party Of China On Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening The Reform,” USC US-China Institute, November 12, 2013. For a discussion of the concept as the “fifth pillar” of modernization in Chinese, see Xu Yaotong, “Yingti ‘Guojia Zhili Xiandai Hua’ 应提‘国家治理现代化’ [Examining ‘The Modernization of National Governance’],” Beijing Daily, 30 May 2014.
10. Translated here as “security of our sovereign power,” the term zhèngquán ānquán [政权安全] is difficult to render accurately into English. When Chinese translate English phrases like “regime change” into Chinese, 政权 (zhèngquán) is the word they most often us for “regime.” “Regime security” is therefore an acceptable gloss. Yet unlike the English “regime,” zhèngquán does not describe the institutional architecture of rulership so much as the sovereign power that rulership grants. Thus its appearance in Mao’s most famous aphorism: “枪杆子里面出政权” [usually translated as “political power (zhèngquán) grows from the barrel of a gun”].
11. The formulation “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination” dates back to the 1989 Sino-Soviet Summit, in which Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Beijing to meet with Deng and other Chinese leaders. The visit signified the renormalization of Sino-Soviet relations following their conflict in the 1950s. The Chinese relationship with Russia survived the Soviet collapse. In 2001, China and Russia inked the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, which “endeavor[ed] to enhance relations between the two countries to a completely new level.” In 2011, the two countries celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation by elevating their partnership to a “comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation." Eight years later, they upgraded their relationship once again to a “comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation for a new era." See “How Has the China-Russia Relationship Evolved?,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 26 March 2021.
12. “Coordination based on benefits and equality” is another catchphrase in China's partnership diplomacy.
13.  Chinese state media first started to claim that Sino-Japanese relations have entered a “new protracted war” in January 2014, following former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine, a nationally significant Shinto shrine and war museum that commemorates those who died in service of Japan, including those who served during the Second Sino-Japanese War. China's relationship with Japan deteriorated after Abe's visit. See “Anbei baigui ling zhongri xianxin ‘chijiu zhan’ 安倍拜鬼令中日陷新‘持久战’ [Abe's ghost worshiping puts China and Japan in a new ‘protracted war’],” China News, 22 January 2014.
14. The author is referring to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2012. The outbreak originated in Saudi Arabia and quickly spread to other countries in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the United States.
15. Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines on November 8, 2013, causing widespread devastation and loss of life. The storm affected over 14 million people, destroyed homes, infrastructure, and crops, and led to over 6,000 deaths.

需要抓紧谋划国家安全战略,通过积极主动的顶层设计与战略运筹,助推国家安全工作与民族复兴伟业。

中共十八届三中全会决定设立国家安全委员会(以下简称“国安委”)意义非同凡响,其有助于以安全保发展、实现发展与安全并举;有助于统筹国内与国际两个大局、贯通外事与内事;有助于打破部门利益羁绊、维护整体国家利益;有助于中国从容参与大国战略博弈、引领世界和平发展大潮。

设立“国安委”是具有中国特色的国家安全工作体制机制创新,标志着国家安全工作进入了 “中央强有力统筹、跨部门整合、从战略上主动运筹” 的历史新阶段,需要抓紧谋划国家安全战略,通过积极主动的顶层设计与战略运筹,助推国家安全工作与民族复兴伟业。

当前国家安全环境

对于设立“国安委”,习近平总书记在会上作了专门说明。他开宗明义地指出,“国家安全和社会稳定是改革发展的前提。只有国家安全和社会稳定,改革发展才能不断推进”。关于设立“国安委”的必要性与紧迫性,习总书记又指出,“当前,我国面临对外维护国家主权、安全、发展利益,对内维护政治安全和社会稳定的双重压力,各种可以预见和难以预见的风险因素明显增多。而我们的安全工作体制机制还不能适应维护国家安全的需要,需要搭建一个强有力的平台统筹国家安全工作。设立国家安全委员会,加强对国家安全工作的集中统一领导,已是当务之急”。

习总书记还明确了“国安委”的主要职责,即“制定和实施国家安全战略,推进国家安全法治建设,制定国家安全工作方针政策,研究解决国家安全工作中的重大问题”。其中,制定“国家安全战略”亦被提上议事日程。国家安全战略既是一项庞大的系统工程,对中国而言更是一种新生事物,需要集思广益、群策群力、超前谋划。

全盘审视和谋划国家安全战略,首先需要准确把握当前中国国家安全形势与环境的总体特征。具体而言大致包括如下三点:

一是“内忧”与“外患”并存。在全方位对外开放条件下与全球化、信息化、网络化时代,影响国家安全的内部因素与外部因素互动频繁,乃至产生联动效应。对中国而言,作为快速崛起的社会主义发展中大国,一方面“外患”有增无减、复杂嬗变、层出不穷,另一方面,影响国内改革发展稳定大局的“内忧”仍然存在,国家安全工作的重心仍在国内。

二是国家安全的“内涵”更加复杂,“外延”更加宽广。内涵更复杂是指国家安全的主体虽基本维持不变,即作为整体的主权国家及其中央政府,但客体却越来越多,既包括作为个体的位于中国境内的中外法人与个人,也包括位于境外的中国法人与个人。随着中国企业与公民大踏步地“走出去”,中国国家安全的边界日益向外延伸,维护与拓展“海外利益”日趋成为中国国家安全的一项重大工作; 外延更宽广则是指国家安全所涵盖的领域越来越多、越来越广。

三是传统与非传统安全并存,传统安全仍吃重,非传统安全更复杂。维护政治与社会稳定、巩固政权安全、捍卫国家统一与领土完整等传统安全压力不减,恐怖主义、网络安全、气候变化等非传统安全压力增大,例如“东伊运”幕后指使实施的北京天安门金水桥恐怖袭击事件,以及美国国安局前雇员斯诺登曝光的美对华网络渗透等。

其次,需要分辨国家安全所面临的机遇与挑战,尤需厘清国家安全威胁的轻重缓急。

具体而言,中国国家安全面临的机遇主要有二:

一是中国自身综合实力不断增强,中国特色社会主义政治与经济体制更加成熟、具有很大的优越性,以习近平为总书记的新一届中央领导集体统筹内外、励精图治、放眼全球、更加主动有为;

二是全球化与多极化难以逆转,世界力量对比“新陈代谢”与“新升旧降”对中国有利。

中国国家安全面临的挑战大致包括如下五点:

一是国内转型期社会矛盾累积,各类群体性事件多发易发,外部敌对势力趁机插手利用,维护社会和谐稳定与统筹推进改革难度增大。

二是“台独”、“藏独”、“东突独”等分裂势力蠢蠢欲动,国际反华势力对其加以扶持利用,反分裂、反恐、反宗教极端主义任务艰巨。

三是中国加速崛起改变了国际与地区格局,引发西方大国不安不满与周边个别国家反弹对抗。战略重心“东移”亚太的美国竭力维持世界霸权与亚太主导权,中美博弈更加敏感复杂激烈。日本不甘被中国全面赶超,企图摆脱和平宪法掣肘、实现军事大国野心。美日同盟加深、彼此相互利用,导致周边环境的“安全系数”下降,海洋争端加剧。

四是中国经济持续中高速增长严重依赖于境外能源资源进口与国际市场需求,经济安全存在很大的脆弱性,容易受制于人。

五是全球气候变化与中国生态环境恶化叠加,重大自然灾害趋于频繁、危害加大。

战略方针与战略目标

维护国家安全的战略方针宜采“辩证统筹、古为今用、主动运筹、循序渐进”的原则,其要有三:

一是强化与贯彻“综合安全”、“大安全”理念,统筹国内安全与国际安全,统筹传统与非传统安全,统筹应对现实威胁与长远挑战。

二是大力弘扬中华优秀传统“战略文化”,中国传统的政治智慧与谋略思想博大精深、堪称“战略宝库”,理应系统整理、古为今用,尤其是以西汉(从文景之治到武宣之政)、盛唐(从贞观之治到开元盛世)与清朝前期(康雍乾)三大盛世为代表,义利兼顾、德力俱足、刚柔并济的“务实王道”,也值得致力于实现中华民族伟大复兴“中国梦”的当代中国所发扬光大,包括软硬兼施、恩威并施、合作与斗争并举、维护自身利益与承担国际责任兼顾。

三是善于利用矛盾、借力打力、纵横捭阖,应主动谋划、积极博弈,防止被动挨整,制人而非制于人。

在此战略方针下,应由近及远、制定分阶段的国家安全战略目标,大致包括以下四个时间段:

一是从现在开始的未来5年(2013--2017年),目标是完善国家安全工作体制机制,增强国家安全工作手段与能力,为全面深化改革、保持经济中高速增长、推进发展方式转变创造有利的国内国际安全环境,为“十二五”与“十三五”规划顺利实施提供强有力的安全保障,捍卫主权统一与领土完整,确保周边安全环境总体和平安宁,稳步拓展海外利益。

二是在“第一个一百年”即建党一百周年前夕(2020年),维护好“重要战略机遇期”,“推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化”,为实现“全面建成小康社会”战略目标创造有利的国内国际安全环境,逐步成为周边乃至国际安全环境的主动塑造者。

三是在建党百年与建国百年这两个“一百年”之间的近30年“空档期”(2021--2049年),稳扎稳打,促进国内长治久安,更加积极主动地塑造国际安全环境,增加对国际安全“公共产品”的提供,实现国内与国际安全两个大局良性互动、相得益彰,并在此期间以适当方式实现国家完全的统一与领土完整。

四是在“第二个一百年”即建国一百周年之际与本世纪中叶(2050年),为实现成为“中等发达国家”的战略目标、实现中华民族伟大复兴的“中国梦”创造有利的国内国际安全环境,成为周边安全新秩序的主要建构者与国际安全新秩序的主要参与者。

战略布局与战略重点

国家安全战略布局应坚持“内外兼修、内主外辅、全面推进、重点突出”的原则,统筹兼顾传统与非传统安全,综合运用常态化管理、事先预警与应急处置、危机管控,具体与扼要而言,包括以下八大领域的安全战略:

一是政治安全。强化反分裂、反暴恐、反宗教极端主义斗争,通过全面深化改革扶助弱势群体、增强公平正义、化解社会矛盾,完善民族与宗教政策,加大反腐败制度建设,不断提升中国共产党的执政能力,维护社会大局稳定、总体和谐与政权安全。

二是战略安全。全面与均衡发展与各大国的关系,积极推进中美新型大国关系、扩大合作面、管理竞争面。稳步深化中俄全面战略协作伙伴关系,促进中欧互利平等合作。完善“金砖国家”机制,做大做强新兴大国互信合作,防止被西方大国分化,防止被西方大国联手压制。

三是周边安全。完善地缘战略布局,统筹经略陆海、着力开拓海洋。坚决遏制日本右倾化,打好全面赶超日本的“新持久战”,防止美日联手使坏。有效处置周边热点、难点,妥善化解南海争端,加大非传统安全合作,增强周边安全话语权。

四是军事安全。扎实推进中国军事现代化,强化细化军事斗争准备,增强军事威慑力,坚决捍卫领土完整。加强军事外交,增进军事互信。对海洋、太空、网络、极地等“全球公地”加大投入,抢占未来制高点。

五是经济安全。大力扶持民族产业与自主品牌,积极投身世界新科技、新产业与新能源革命,逐步减少对外能源资源依赖,通过改革与强化风险管理维护金融安全,稳步推进周边经济合作机制建设与全球自贸区建设,积极参与全球经济治理,扩大国际经贸规则制定权,预防TPP(跨太平洋伙伴关系协议)与TTIP(跨大西洋贸易与投资伙伴协议)的不利影响,通过制定并实施“走出去战略”强化海外利益保护。

六是文化安全。坚持“以我为主、古为今用、洋为中用、综合创新”,打造有说服力、吸引力、亲和力、竞争力的当代中国核心价值观,强化公民教育与传统文化教育,统筹内宣与外宣,改进网络时代舆论斗争方式方法,有效增强党和政府公信力与话语权,做大做强民族文化产业,主动应对西方强势价值观与意识形态渗透。

七是信息网络安全。习总书记在十八届三中全会上专门指出,“网络和信息安全牵涉到国家安全和社会稳定,是我们面临的新的综合性挑战”。“现行管理体制存在明显弊端,主要是多头管理、职能交叉、权责不一、效率不高”。“特别是面对传播快、影响大、覆盖广、社会动员能力强的微博、微信等社交网络和即时通信工具用户的快速增长,如何加强网络法制建设和舆论引导,确保网络信息传播秩序和国家安全、社会稳定,已经成为摆在我们面前的现实突出问题”。强调要“整合相关机构职能,形成从技术到内容、从日常安全到打击犯罪的互联网管理合力,确保网络正确运用和安全”。

八是其他非传统安全。主要包括公共卫生与食品安全,应预防与有效处置重大疫情,如正在中东肆虐的新型呼吸道病毒;以及生态环境安全,应加强灾害预防与抢险救灾工作,防止极端气候与其他重大自然灾害引发严重破坏,如近期重创菲律宾的“海燕”台风等。

It is necessary to immediately formulate a national security strategy by proactively initiating high-level planning and strategic goal-setting to strengthen the work of national security and further the great cause of National Rejuvenation.

The decision of the Third Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee1 to establish the [Central] National Security Commission (hereafter abbreviated as the “CNSC”) has extraordinary significance. It will safeguard the security [environment] for development and is thereby conducive to both development and security; It will coordinate [our approaches] in both the domestic and international arenas and integrate external and internal affairs; it will break down the barriers of departmental interests, and thereby advance the interests of the country as a whole; it will equip China to participate with ease in the strategic great games of the major powers and to lead the tide of peaceful development in the world.

The establishment of the CNSC is an innovation in the work processes and institutional architecture of national security with Chinese characteristics. It marks the point where national security work has entered a new historic stage of “strong coordination by the Center, cross-departmental integration, and active strategic planning.” It is necessary to pay close attention to the planning of a national security strategy, by proactively initiating top-level planning and strategic goal-setting, in order to strengthen the work of national security and further the cause of National Rejuvenation.

The Current National Security Environment

General Secretary Xi Jinping offered a special explanation of the establishment of the CNSC at the [Third] Plenum. From the outset, he made clear that “national security and social stability are the prerequisites for reform and development. Reform and development cannot advance without national security and social stability.” Regarding the necessity and urgency of establishing the CNSC, General Secretary Xi further pointed out that “at the present, our state faces the dual pressure of safeguarding our national sovereignty, security, and development interests from external [threats] while also safeguarding political security and social stability from internal [threats]. Various foreseeable and unforeseeable risk factors have clearly increased significantly. Moreover, the institutional architecture and processes of [our] security work are still unable to adapt to the requirements of safeguarding national security. A strong platform needs to be built to coordinate national security work. The establishment of the [Central] National Security Commission to strengthen, centralize, and unify leadership over national security work is a top priority.”2

General Secretary Xi also clarified the main responsibilities of the CNSC: namely, “to formulate and implement a national security strategy, promote the construction of a legal foundation for state security, formulate guidelines and policies for the work of national security, and study solutions to major problems in national security work.” Among them, formulating a “national security strategy” has also been put on the agenda.3 The national security strategy is not only a massive systemic project, but is also a new project for China, and it requires [us] to profit from a wide range of suggestions, gain from the wisdom of many, and stay at the cutting edge of the planning process. 

To comprehensively evaluate and formulate a national security strategy, we must first accurately grasp the overall characteristics of the current national security environment. Concretely, it roughly includes the following three points:

The first is the coexistence of “internal worries” and “foreign troubles.” Under the conditions of comprehensive opening to the outside world and in the era of globalization, informatization, and network-ization, the internal and external factors that affect national security frequently intersect, and have interlinked consequences. [A]s a rapidly developing socialist country, China faces a twofold challenge: on the one hand, “foreign troubles” are increasing and becoming more complex. [O]n the other hand, there are still “internal worries” that affect the overall landscape of domestic reform, development and stability. [T]he focus of national security work is still internal.

Second, the “internal content” of national security is becoming increasingly complex while its “external implications” are becoming broader. The increasing complexity of its “internal content” refers to the reality that while the “subject” of national security remains basically unchanged—that is, the sovereignty of the state and its central government as a whole—the “objects” of national security are growing more numerous, which include [both] Chinese and foreign legal entities and individuals within our border, as well as Chinese and foreign legal entities and individuals outside of our border. As Chinese enterprises and citizens “go out” with great strides, the boundaries of China’s national security extend further outward. Maintaining and expanding “overseas interests” has gradually become a major task for China’s national security. Broader “external implications” refer to the reality that the domain of national security is increasing and expanding.

The third is the coexistence of traditional and nontraditional security. [T]raditional security is still important, but nontraditional security is more complex. Traditional security pressures such as maintaining political and social stability, consolidating the security of our sovereign power, and safeguarding national unity and territorial integrity remain unabated, while nontraditional security pressures such as terrorism, cybersecurity, and climate change have increased. Take for example the Turkestan Islamic Party’s terrorist attack on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as well as the [extent of] the United States’ network penetration into China that was exposed by former NSA employee Edward Snowden, and so forth.4

Next, it is necessary to distinguish the opportunities and challenges facing [our] national security. In particular, [it is necessary] to clarify how to rank and prioritize different national security threats.

Concretely, there are two opportunities that China's national security [system] can exploit:

First, China's comprehensive strength is continuously increasing. The socialist political and economic system with Chinese characteristics is maturing and possesses great advantages. The new central leadership with Xi Jinping as General Secretary are coordinating internal and external affairs, striving for excellence as they perfect their governance, [keeping] a global perspective, and acting proactively.

Second, globalization and multi-polarization are difficult to reverse. When comparing [strengths and weaknesses of] the world powers, the dynamic of “rise of the new and fall of the old” is beneficial to China.

The challenges facing China’s national security are roughly encompassed in the following five points:

First, social contradictions accumulated during the domestic transition period. [V]arious kinds of mass incidents occur frequently.5 [E]xternal hostile forces have taken advantage of [these incidents] to meddle [inside China], making it more difficult to maintain social harmony and stability and consolidate and promote reform.

Second, separatist forces such as the Taiwan independence movement,” "the Tibetan independence movement,” and "the East Turkestan independence movement" are agitated to stir up troubles, and [they are being] supported and exploited by anti-Chinese forces abroad. The task of countering separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism is daunting.

Third, China's accelerated rise has changed the international and regional landscape, causing anxiety and dissatisfaction among Western powers as well as [moments of] backlash and confrontation with certain neighboring countries. The United States, whose strategic center of gravity has "shifted eastward” to the Asia-Pacific region, is striving to maintain global hegemony and predominance in the Asia-Pacific region. The contest between China and the United States has become more sensitive, complex and fierce. Not resigned to being completely overtaken by China, Japan is trying to undo the constraints of its pacifist constitution and realize its ambitions as a military power. The deepening of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the two power’s growing efforts to use the other [for their own ends] have led to a decrease in the "safety coefficient” of the surrounding environment and have intensified maritime disputes.6

Fourth, the sustained medium to high level of growth of the Chinese economy is heavily dependent on the import of overseas energy resources and demand on the international market. Our economic security is very vulnerable, and can be easily controlled by others.

Fifth, global climate change and the deterioration of China's ecological environment are superimposed on the other factors, and major natural disasters are becoming more frequent and damaging.

Strategic Guidelines and Strategic Objectives

The strategic guidelines for safeguarding national security are: a dialectical and integrated approach, using the past for the sake of the present, proactive operations planning, and gradual progress [over time]. This has three requirements.

First, it requires strengthening and implementing "Comprehensive Security” and "Overall Security”; 7 [this means] integrating our approach to domestic security and international security, integrating our approach to traditional and non-traditional security, and integrating our responses to present threats and long-term challenges.

Second, it requires vigorously promote the excellent tradition of Chinese "strategic culture.” Traditional Chinese political wisdom and strategic thought are broad and profound, and can even be called "a treasure chest of strategy.” It should be studied systematically so that the past can serve the present. Exemplars of [this culture] include the reign of three prosperous eras of the Western Han Dynasty (from the rule of Emperors Wen and Jing to the rule of Emperors Wu and Xuan], the Tang Dynasty (from the rule of Zhenguan [Emperor Taizong] to the prosperous age of Kaiyuan [Emperor Xuanzong], and the early Qing Dynasty (the rule of Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong). [These reigns] exemplify "a pragmatic ‘Way of the true King’” that combines justice with profit, virtue and strength, and power and flexibility.8 This way [of kingship] is worthy of contemporary China, committed [as it is] to realizing the "China Dream” of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation, including both hard and soft power, tempering justice with mercy, cooperation with struggle, and striking a balance between safeguarding its own interests and assuming international responsibilities.

Third, it requires being good at exploiting contradictions, leveraging our strength to maximum effect, utilizing geopolitical stratagems and diplomatic maneuvers, planning and moving with initiative, preventing [situations where we] are passive targets, and controlling others instead of being controlled by others.

Following the guideline above, the strategic objectives should include both short-term and long-term goals, falling in four time periods:

First, over the next five years (2013-2017): our objective is to improve the institutional architecture and processes of national security work, enhance the means and capabilities of national security work, and create opportunities for comprehensively deepening reforms, maintaining medium-to-high-speed economic growth, and promoting the transformation of developmental methods for use in a favorable domestic and international security environments. The objective is to provide a strong security guarantee for the successful implementation of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan” and "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan,” safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, ensure overall peace and tranquility in the security environment of our periphery, and steadily expand overseas interests.

Second, by the eve of the “first hundred years,” the centenary of the founding of the Party (2020): maintain the “Important Period of Strategic Opportunity” and “promote the modernization of the state governing system and capacity,”9 in order to achieve “the completion of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.” The strategic goal is to create a favorable domestic and international security environment, and gradually become an active sculptor of the international security environment on our periphery and internationally.

Third, during the “30-year gap” between the centennial of the Party and the centennial of the People's Republic of China (2021-2049):  our objective is to ensure stable domestic governance, sculpt the international security environment in a more proactive manner,  increase the provision of "public goods" for international security, and realize a positive and complementary relationship between the broader domestic and international security landscapes. Meanwhile, during this period we need to achieve complete national unity and territorial integrity in an appropriate manner.

Fourth, by the bi-centennial of  the People's Republic of China and the middle of this century (2050): our strategic objective is to become a “middle developed country,” realize the “China Dream” of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation, and create a favorable domestic and international security environment. [China should] become a major architect of the new regional security order and a major participant within a new international security.

Strategic Deployment and Strategic Focus Points

The strategic deployment of the national security strategy should uphold the principles of: balancing effort in both the internal and external domains, with a focus on the internal as the top priority and the external as a secondary priority; advancing on all fronts, while maintaining focus on prominent areas; taking both traditional and non-traditional security into account; making extensive use of standardized management, preemptive warning and emergency response, and crisis management and control. To put it more concretely, [our policy] should focus on the following eight domains of security strategy:

First: Political Security. To maintain social stability on a broad scale, a more total harmony, and the security of our sovereign power,10 we must strengthen the fight against separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism, help populations that are vulnerable [to infiltration or indoctrination] through the comprehensive deepening of reform, the promotion of fairness and justice, resolving social contradictions, perfecting ethnic and religious policy, continuing to construct institutional procedures to counter corruption, and continuously improving the governing capabilities of the Communist Party of China.

Second: Strategic Security. We must develop relations with major powers in a comprehensive and balanced manner. We must actively promote Sino-US relations according to the New Model of Great Power Relations, expanding areas of cooperation, and managing areas of competition. We must steadily deepen our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination with Russia,11 and promote “coordination based on benefit and equality” between China and the EU. We must improve the “BRICS” mechanism, expand and strengthen mutual trust and cooperation among emerging powers, prevent them from being divided by Western powers, and prevent them from being repressed by Western powers.

Third: Security on the Periphery. We must perfect our geo-strategic deployment, taking an integrated approach to our position both on land and at sea, while focusing our efforts on opening up new maritime capacity. We must resolutely resist Japan's rightward shift, fight a “new protracted war”13 to catch up with Japan in a comprehensive manner, and prevent the United States and Japan from joining forces. We must effectively manage the hotspots and problems on our periphery, properly resolve disputes in the South China Sea, increase non-traditional security cooperation, and enhance our peripheral security discursive power.

Fourth: Military Security. We must steadily advance China's military modernization, strengthen and refine preparations for military struggle, enhance military deterrence, and resolutely defend our territorial integrity. [We must] strengthen military diplomacy and enhance mutual trust; As for the sea, outer space, the internet, the polar regions, and other “global commons,” we must increase our investment [in them] in order to seize the commanding heights of the future.

Fifth: Economic Security. We must vigorously support national industries and domestic brands, actively invest in state-of-the-art technologies, new industries and the new energy revolution, gradually reduce dependence on external energy resources, maintain financial security through reforming and strengthening risk management; [we must] steadily promote the construction of economic cooperation in our periphery and in global free trade zones; we must construct and actively participate in global economic governance, expand the right to formulate international economic and trade rules, prevent the adverse effects of TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), and strengthen the protection of our overseas interests by formulating and implementing the “Go Out Policy.”

Sixth: Cultural Security. We must uphold “putting our own autonomy at the center, use the past to serve the present, use Western ideas to serve China, and synthesize [both Chinese traditional culture and foreign ideas] in order to innovate.” [We must] create core Chinese values that are convincing, attractive, competitive [with outside ideals], and which have the power to make others identify with them. We must strengthen civic education and traditional cultural education, and take an integrated approach to internal and external propaganda, improve our methods and manner in the struggle for public opinion in the Internet age, effectively enhance the credibility and discursive power of the Party and the government, expand and strengthen national cultural industries, and proactively respond to the persistent intrusion of Western values ​​and ideology.

Seventh: Information and Network Security. At the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, General-Secretary Xi specifically pointed out that “network and information security involves national security and social stability and is a new comprehensive challenge that we face.” [He also said] “the current management system has obvious drawbacks, mainly redundancy in management, overlapping functions, gaps between decision-making authorities and management responsibilities, and inefficiency.” In face of the rapidly expanding user base of social networks and communication tools which instantly disseminates information, exerts great influence among a wide audience, and has the power to mobilize large masses (such as Wechat, Weibo, and so forth), we need to think about how to strengthen legal control, how to direct public opinion online, and how to maintain the orderly dissemination of information, as well as maintain state security and social stability. These questions have become increasingly pressing. [General-Secretary Xi] emphasizes the need to “integrate the functions of relevant institutions, form a joint force in internet management from technology to content, from daily security to combating crimes, and ensure the correct use and security of the internet.”

Eighth: Non-traditional Security. This mainly includes: public health and food safety; effectively dealing with with major epidemics, such as the new respiratory virus raging in the Middle East;14 and ecological security, which we should [manage by] strengthening disaster prevention and rescue/relief work to prevent the severe damage caused by extreme weather and other major natural disasters, such as Typhoon Haiyan, which recently hit the Philippines.15

1. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee was held in Beijing from November 9 to 12, 2013. The Plenum adopted the “Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform” and received to Xi Jinping’s statement on the “Decision.” 
2. See “zhonggong zhongyang guanyu quanmian shenhua gaige ruogan zhongda wenti de jueding 中共中央关于全面深化改革若干重大问题的决定 [Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform],” Xinhua, November 2013.
3. Since 2013, China has passed several national security laws and policies, including the 2015 National Security Law, the 2017 Cybersecurity Law, and the 2017 National Intelligence Law, which all aim to enhance China's ability to identify and counter potential threats to its national security. In addition, China has also passed a national security strategy that remains classified. For a concise overview of these developments, see Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,” China Leadership Monitor, 1 September 2022.
4. The two events listed here exemplify what the CPC identifies as “non-traditional” threats to national security. The first event was a terrorist attack that occurred in Tienanmen Square on October 28, 2013, when a man drove a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, killing five and injuring forty. China's security chief attributed the attack to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party, which subsequently claimed responsibility and threatened future attacks. The latter reference is to the surveillance operations of the  United State’s National Security Agency, which former CIA employee Edward Snowden leaked to South China Morning Post in 2013.
5. Social unrest in China increased at an alarming rate in the years before this essay was written. There are few incidents of public demonstrations, disruptive actions or riots occurred in the early 1980s. By 1993 this number had risen to 8,700 “mass incidents”; by 2005, their number had grown tenfold, to 87,000. Estimates for the number of public protests in 2010 range between 180,000 and 230,000. Christian Gobel and Lynette H. Ong, “Social Unrest in China,” Europe China Research and Advice Network, 2012.
6. Around the time this piece was published, the United States and Japan were reshaping and strengthening their alliance in response to security challenges in the Asia Pacific. In November 2001, the government of Junichiro Koizumi dispatched the Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Indian Ocean to provide logistical support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. In 2003, it sent forces to aid in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction efforts. These operations marked a period of increased defense cooperation between the U.S. and Japan. Later, during Shinzo Abe’s first term as prime minister between 2006 and 2007, he attempted to form the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD or “the quad”) – composed of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia.  Prime Minister Abe would use the template to push for an informal security framework to address Japan’s concerns regarding China’s growing power. Abe returned to power less than a year before this piece was published on a platform that put the threat posed by China to Japanese interests at the center of the election. The United States met his election with statements reaffirming America's commitment to defend Japan in the event of a military conflict over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Chain.
7. “Comprehensive security” and “overall security” refer to China's national security outlook that combines traditional and non-traditional security concerns and connects the country's economic development with its security strategies. Both first entered into wide circulation after the 18th Party's Congress. See “xue xi wang ping: jian chi xi tong si wei gou jian da an quan ge ju 学习网评:坚持系统思维构建大安全格局 [Study network comment: adhere to the system thinking to build a large security pattern],” Xinhua, December 2020.
8. During the Western Han Dynasty, there were three prosperous eras that spanned from the reign of Emperors Wen (180-157 BCE) and Jing (157-141 BCE) to the reign of Emperors Wu (141-87 BCE) and Xuan (74-48 BCE). The Tang Dynasty experienced a period of prosperity that started with the reign of Zhenguan under Emperor Taizong (627 -649 CE) and continued until the prosperous age of Kaiyuan under Emperor Xuanzong (712-741 CE). In the early Qing Dynasty, the reigns of Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong were particularly notable for their achievements and stability. The Kangxi era, which lasted from 1661 to 1722, is known for its expansion of the empire, while the Yongzheng era, which spanned from 1722 to 1735, was marked by economic and administrative reforms. Finally, the Qianlong era, which ran from 1735 to 1796, was characterized by cultural achievements and a period of relative stability.

On the “way of the true king” see our glossary entry HEGEMONISM.
9.  “The modernization of the national governing system and capacity” is an objective first proposed at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 12, 2013. One Chinese scholar dubs this objective the “fifth pillar” of modernization following the earlier pillars of modernization in industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology. See “Decision Of The Central Committee Of The Communist Party Of China On Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening The Reform,” USC US-China Institute, November 12, 2013. For a discussion of the concept as the “fifth pillar” of modernization in Chinese, see Xu Yaotong, “Yingti ‘Guojia Zhili Xiandai Hua’ 应提‘国家治理现代化’ [Examining ‘The Modernization of National Governance’],” Beijing Daily, 30 May 2014.
10. Translated here as “security of our sovereign power,” the term zhèngquán ānquán [政权安全] is difficult to render accurately into English. When Chinese translate English phrases like “regime change” into Chinese, 政权 (zhèngquán) is the word they most often us for “regime.” “Regime security” is therefore an acceptable gloss. Yet unlike the English “regime,” zhèngquán does not describe the institutional architecture of rulership so much as the sovereign power that rulership grants. Thus its appearance in Mao’s most famous aphorism: “枪杆子里面出政权” [usually translated as “political power (zhèngquán) grows from the barrel of a gun”].
11. The formulation “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination” dates back to the 1989 Sino-Soviet Summit, in which Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Beijing to meet with Deng and other Chinese leaders. The visit signified the renormalization of Sino-Soviet relations following their conflict in the 1950s. The Chinese relationship with Russia survived the Soviet collapse. In 2001, China and Russia inked the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, which “endeavor[ed] to enhance relations between the two countries to a completely new level.” In 2011, the two countries celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation by elevating their partnership to a “comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation." Eight years later, they upgraded their relationship once again to a “comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation for a new era." See “How Has the China-Russia Relationship Evolved?,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 26 March 2021.
12. “Coordination based on benefits and equality” is another catchphrase in China's partnership diplomacy.
13.  Chinese state media first started to claim that Sino-Japanese relations have entered a “new protracted war” in January 2014, following former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine, a nationally significant Shinto shrine and war museum that commemorates those who died in service of Japan, including those who served during the Second Sino-Japanese War. China's relationship with Japan deteriorated after Abe's visit. See “Anbei baigui ling zhongri xianxin ‘chijiu zhan’ 安倍拜鬼令中日陷新‘持久战’ [Abe's ghost worshiping puts China and Japan in a new ‘protracted war’],” China News, 22 January 2014.
14. The author is referring to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2012. The outbreak originated in Saudi Arabia and quickly spread to other countries in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the United States.
15. Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines on November 8, 2013, causing widespread devastation and loss of life. The storm affected over 14 million people, destroyed homes, infrastructure, and crops, and led to over 6,000 deaths.

Cite This Article

Chen Xiangyang, “Seize the Opportunity to Plan China's National Security Strategy for the New Era.” Translated by Isaiah Schrader. San Francisco: Center for Strategic Translation, March 23, 2023. 

Originally published as Chen Xiangyang 陈向阳, “Zhuajin Yunchou Xing Shidai Zhongguo Guojia Anquan Zhanlue 抓紧运筹新时期中国国家安全战略 [Seize the Opportunity to Plan China's National Security Strategy for the New Era].” Liaowang Xingwen Zhoukan 瞭望新闻周刊 [Liaowang Weekly Magazine], December 2, 2013.

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Seize the Opportunity to Plan China's National Security Strategy for the New Era

抓紧运筹新时期中国国家安全战略

Author
Chen Xiangyang
陈向阳
original publication
Liaowang Weekly Magazine
瞭望新闻周刊
publication date
December 2, 2013
Translator
Isaiah Schrader
Translation date
March 24, 2023

Introduction

One part intellectual framework for guiding state security work, one part bludgeon for reshaping the state security bureaucracy itself, the “Total National Security Paradigm” is Xi Jinping’s signature theoretical contribution to the security of the Communist Party of China. A special focus of Xi’s paradigm is the integration of the internal security and surveillance regime of the PRC with its external diplomatic, military, and intelligence activities.  Stage by stage this understanding of state security has been codified in a suite of new national security laws and official national security strategies, embodied in new organs for coordinating state security, and popularized in study materials distributed to cadres across the country.1  At each point of this process we find Chen Xiangyang explaining and justifying to the Party faithful what the new Paradigm means and why the wide ranging changes that Xi Jinping advocates are necessary to realize it. 

Chen Xiangyang began his career at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a quasi-academic research center funded and staffed by officers from China’s premier intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).2 Chen received his PhD from CICIR in 2003 with a dissertation that focused on China’s strategic relations with the countries on its near periphery.3 As with many CICIR researchers his subsequent career with CICIR is somewhat difficult to trace: a stint as a visiting scholar abroad here, participation in a United Front group there, with a smattering of articles published in various party publications and academic journals throughout. By the mid-2010s Chen had been elevated to Department Director of CICIR’s Department of World Politics, where it can be safely assumed he was an active participant in analytical and policy processes that CICIR does not publicize. He would leave this position in 2021 to join a new CICIR research unit: The Center for Research on the Total National Security Paradigm. 

This essay was written long before Chen’s career was publicly intertwined with the new Security Paradigm. Written while Chen was still ensconced in CICIR's Department of World Politics and several months before the Total National Security Paradigm would be officially unveiled, the impetus for Chen’s essay was the creation of the Central National Security Commission (中央国家安全委员会), which occurred during the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee in November 2013. Chen presents this bureaucratic restructuring as the first step of a larger conceptual overhaul of state security work as a whole. His essay is an attempt to stake out what this new approach to state security should mean for China’s broader diplomatic posture. Though he does not use the phrase “Total National Security Paradigm” itself, his essay expresses numerous ideas that would soon be incorporated into Xi's framework. Given Chen’s subsequent career, these arguments should be read as the assessments of an insider who would go on to help formulate and popularize Xi Jinping’s new approach to state security.

Chen’s conception of the problem set that the Total National Security Paradigm solves are fairly conventional. Chen faults the PRC’s state security apparatus for inefficiency, overlapping lines of authority, and a rigid bureaucratic inertia. This top heavy and hidebound bureaucratic structure is not suited to meet the security challenges inherent to a globalized era where “the internal and external factors which affect national security frequently intersect and have consequences that are interlinked with each other.” On the one hand, the internet and trade ties have increased Western influence inside China, empowering Western countries to “meddle” with China’s internal security; on the other hand, China's growing economic interests abroad mean that China has new security interests far from its own borders. For Chen, the creation of the Central National Security Commission was in part official recognition that “national security [now] includes an increasing number of increasingly broad domains.”

More unique is Chen’s discussion of how the Paradigm fits into the long term aims of Chinese security strategy. Most authors with quasi-official positions like Chen’s stick to broad generalizations about the need to guarantee the safety of the Chinese people, secure the Party’s sovereign power, and realize national rejuvenation. Chen breaks these broad aims into more specific sub-goals, tying each to specific points on a timeline stretching from the article’s 2013 publication through the PRC centennial in 2049.

According to this periodization, the goal of the first two stages—the first ending with the 19th Party Congress in 2017, the second in 2020—of the Chinese state security apparatus is preserving the conditions that allow for China’s breakneck economic development. These goals are not original: both of these periods’ end dates correspond to existing economic targets previously articulated by Party leaders. Chen believes that after 2020 the focus of state security will shift away from economic development. In the “three decade window” to follow 2020

our objective is to ensure stable domestic governance, sculpt the international security environment in a more proactive manner, increase the provision of "public goods" for international security, and realize a positive and complementary relationship between the broader domestic and international security landscapes. Meanwhile, during this period we need to achieve complete national unity and territorial integrity in an appropriate manner.

Each of these items stands in stark relief to the security priorities of the reform era. “A positive and complementary relationship between the broader domestic and international security landscapes” must be established because, as Chen’s earlier worries about globalization's effect on China’s internal stability suggest, Chen does not believe that this positive relationship exists. A China “proactively sculpting” and “provisioning public goods for” the international order would be a China that had decisively abandoned Deng’s advice to “maintain a low profile and never claim leadership.”4 Achieving “complete national unity and territorial integrity” suggests that the problem posed by Taiwan’s de facto autonomy must finally be confronted before this period concludes.

With these aims accomplished the PRC can look forward to 2049, the culmination of Chen’s final stage in the evolution of China's national security. By this point China will be “a major architect of the new regional security order and a major participant within a new international security order.” Whether the demise of the existing security order is to be secured by the defeat or disintegration is not specified. But by endorsing this goal Chen subtly suggests that the American system of military alliances is not compatible with his party’s long term security.  

It is notable that Chen articulates these grand strategic goals in an essay that argues that the Party must “focus on the internal as the top priority and the external as a secondary priority.” Chen repeatedly affirms that political security is the paramount concern of the new paradigm. That Chen then proceeds to write so much about China’s external environment in a piece outlining a new framework for securing China's internal order suggests that for men like Chen Xiangyang, the strength of its domestic regime cannot be disentangled from the shape of the international order. 

1. For a concise overview of these developments, see Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,”China Leadership Monitor, 1 September 2022.
2. On the relationship between the MSS and CICIR see Alex Joske, Spies and Lies: How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World (Sydney: Hardie Grant Books, 2022), pp. 24–29; David Shambaugh, “China's International Relations Think Tanks: Evolving Structure and Process,”The China Quarterly 171 (2002), pp. 575–596.
3. This would be published in monograph form in 2004 as Zhongguo Mulin Waijiao: Sixiang, Shijian, Qianzhan 中国睦邻外交:思想·实践·前瞻 [China's Good Neighbor Diplomacy: Thought, Practice, and Prospects] (Beijing 北京: Shishi Chuban She 时事出版社 [Current Affairs Press], 2004).
4. These were two phrases from Deng’s famous “24 character” strategy (in Chinese they read “善于守拙,决不当头”). The earliest official reference to the strategy came after the Tiananmen Square protest. In speech to the CPC Central Committee in September 1989, Deng laid out key portions of the strategy: “In short, my views about the international situation can be summed up in three sentences. First, we should observe the situation coolly. Second, we should hold our ground. Third, we should act calmly. Don’t be impatient; it is no good to be impatient. We should be calm, calm and again calm, and quietly immerse ourselves in practical work to accomplish something—something for China.” In a report released in December the same year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs extracted Deng's thought into a 24 character slogan: “observe calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; make friends; know our strength [冷静观察、韬光养晦、站稳脚跟、沉着应付、朋友要交、心中有数].”

The imperative that China should “maintain a low profile and never claim leadership [善于守拙, 决不当头]” was added to the strategy the following year. The addition was based on Deng's address to ranking members of the Central Committee in December 1990: “Now the international situation is full of unpredictable factors and conflicts are becoming more and more prominent. The two hegemons used to fight for the world, but now it is much more complicated and chaotic than that time. There are some countries in the third world that want China to be the leader. We must not claim leadership. This is a fundamental national policy.”

See Deng Xiaoping, “With Stable Policies of Reform and Opening To the Outside World, China Can Have Great Hopes For the Future,” inThe Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping Vol 3. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2010); Gong Li 宫力, “Yu Shijie Gongwu: Deng Xiaoping Zhanlue Shijiande Xianshi Yiyi 与世界共舞:邓小平对外战略实践的现实意义 [Dancing with the World: The Practical Significance of Deng Xiaoping's Foreign Strategy].” Pengbo Xingwen 澎湃新闻 [The Paper], 22 August 2018; Rush Doshi, The Long Game (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).

It is necessary to immediately formulate a national security strategy by proactively initiating high-level planning and strategic goal-setting to strengthen the work of national security and further the great cause of National Rejuvenation.

The decision of the Third Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee1 to establish the [Central] National Security Commission (hereafter abbreviated as the “CNSC”) has extraordinary significance. It will safeguard the security [environment] for development and is thereby conducive to both development and security; It will coordinate [our approaches] in both the domestic and international arenas and integrate external and internal affairs; it will break down the barriers of departmental interests, and thereby advance the interests of the country as a whole; it will equip China to participate with ease in the strategic great games of the major powers and to lead the tide of peaceful development in the world.

The establishment of the CNSC is an innovation in the work processes and institutional architecture of national security with Chinese characteristics. It marks the point where national security work has entered a new historic stage of “strong coordination by the Center, cross-departmental integration, and active strategic planning.” It is necessary to pay close attention to the planning of a national security strategy, by proactively initiating top-level planning and strategic goal-setting, in order to strengthen the work of national security and further the cause of National Rejuvenation.

The Current National Security Environment

General Secretary Xi Jinping offered a special explanation of the establishment of the CNSC at the [Third] Plenum. From the outset, he made clear that “national security and social stability are the prerequisites for reform and development. Reform and development cannot advance without national security and social stability.” Regarding the necessity and urgency of establishing the CNSC, General Secretary Xi further pointed out that “at the present, our state faces the dual pressure of safeguarding our national sovereignty, security, and development interests from external [threats] while also safeguarding political security and social stability from internal [threats]. Various foreseeable and unforeseeable risk factors have clearly increased significantly. Moreover, the institutional architecture and processes of [our] security work are still unable to adapt to the requirements of safeguarding national security. A strong platform needs to be built to coordinate national security work. The establishment of the [Central] National Security Commission to strengthen, centralize, and unify leadership over national security work is a top priority.”2

General Secretary Xi also clarified the main responsibilities of the CNSC: namely, “to formulate and implement a national security strategy, promote the construction of a legal foundation for state security, formulate guidelines and policies for the work of national security, and study solutions to major problems in national security work.” Among them, formulating a “national security strategy” has also been put on the agenda.3 The national security strategy is not only a massive systemic project, but is also a new project for China, and it requires [us] to profit from a wide range of suggestions, gain from the wisdom of many, and stay at the cutting edge of the planning process. 

To comprehensively evaluate and formulate a national security strategy, we must first accurately grasp the overall characteristics of the current national security environment. Concretely, it roughly includes the following three points:

The first is the coexistence of “internal worries” and “foreign troubles.” Under the conditions of comprehensive opening to the outside world and in the era of globalization, informatization, and network-ization, the internal and external factors that affect national security frequently intersect, and have interlinked consequences. [A]s a rapidly developing socialist country, China faces a twofold challenge: on the one hand, “foreign troubles” are increasing and becoming more complex. [O]n the other hand, there are still “internal worries” that affect the overall landscape of domestic reform, development and stability. [T]he focus of national security work is still internal.

Second, the “internal content” of national security is becoming increasingly complex while its “external implications” are becoming broader. The increasing complexity of its “internal content” refers to the reality that while the “subject” of national security remains basically unchanged—that is, the sovereignty of the state and its central government as a whole—the “objects” of national security are growing more numerous, which include [both] Chinese and foreign legal entities and individuals within our border, as well as Chinese and foreign legal entities and individuals outside of our border. As Chinese enterprises and citizens “go out” with great strides, the boundaries of China’s national security extend further outward. Maintaining and expanding “overseas interests” has gradually become a major task for China’s national security. Broader “external implications” refer to the reality that the domain of national security is increasing and expanding.

The third is the coexistence of traditional and nontraditional security. [T]raditional security is still important, but nontraditional security is more complex. Traditional security pressures such as maintaining political and social stability, consolidating the security of our sovereign power, and safeguarding national unity and territorial integrity remain unabated, while nontraditional security pressures such as terrorism, cybersecurity, and climate change have increased. Take for example the Turkestan Islamic Party’s terrorist attack on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as well as the [extent of] the United States’ network penetration into China that was exposed by former NSA employee Edward Snowden, and so forth.4

Next, it is necessary to distinguish the opportunities and challenges facing [our] national security. In particular, [it is necessary] to clarify how to rank and prioritize different national security threats.

Concretely, there are two opportunities that China's national security [system] can exploit:

First, China's comprehensive strength is continuously increasing. The socialist political and economic system with Chinese characteristics is maturing and possesses great advantages. The new central leadership with Xi Jinping as General Secretary are coordinating internal and external affairs, striving for excellence as they perfect their governance, [keeping] a global perspective, and acting proactively.

Second, globalization and multi-polarization are difficult to reverse. When comparing [strengths and weaknesses of] the world powers, the dynamic of “rise of the new and fall of the old” is beneficial to China.

The challenges facing China’s national security are roughly encompassed in the following five points:

First, social contradictions accumulated during the domestic transition period. [V]arious kinds of mass incidents occur frequently.5 [E]xternal hostile forces have taken advantage of [these incidents] to meddle [inside China], making it more difficult to maintain social harmony and stability and consolidate and promote reform.

Second, separatist forces such as the Taiwan independence movement,” "the Tibetan independence movement,” and "the East Turkestan independence movement" are agitated to stir up troubles, and [they are being] supported and exploited by anti-Chinese forces abroad. The task of countering separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism is daunting.

Third, China's accelerated rise has changed the international and regional landscape, causing anxiety and dissatisfaction among Western powers as well as [moments of] backlash and confrontation with certain neighboring countries. The United States, whose strategic center of gravity has "shifted eastward” to the Asia-Pacific region, is striving to maintain global hegemony and predominance in the Asia-Pacific region. The contest between China and the United States has become more sensitive, complex and fierce. Not resigned to being completely overtaken by China, Japan is trying to undo the constraints of its pacifist constitution and realize its ambitions as a military power. The deepening of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the two power’s growing efforts to use the other [for their own ends] have led to a decrease in the "safety coefficient” of the surrounding environment and have intensified maritime disputes.6

Fourth, the sustained medium to high level of growth of the Chinese economy is heavily dependent on the import of overseas energy resources and demand on the international market. Our economic security is very vulnerable, and can be easily controlled by others.

Fifth, global climate change and the deterioration of China's ecological environment are superimposed on the other factors, and major natural disasters are becoming more frequent and damaging.

Strategic Guidelines and Strategic Objectives

The strategic guidelines for safeguarding national security are: a dialectical and integrated approach, using the past for the sake of the present, proactive operations planning, and gradual progress [over time]. This has three requirements.

First, it requires strengthening and implementing "Comprehensive Security” and "Overall Security”; 7 [this means] integrating our approach to domestic security and international security, integrating our approach to traditional and non-traditional security, and integrating our responses to present threats and long-term challenges.

Second, it requires vigorously promote the excellent tradition of Chinese "strategic culture.” Traditional Chinese political wisdom and strategic thought are broad and profound, and can even be called "a treasure chest of strategy.” It should be studied systematically so that the past can serve the present. Exemplars of [this culture] include the reign of three prosperous eras of the Western Han Dynasty (from the rule of Emperors Wen and Jing to the rule of Emperors Wu and Xuan], the Tang Dynasty (from the rule of Zhenguan [Emperor Taizong] to the prosperous age of Kaiyuan [Emperor Xuanzong], and the early Qing Dynasty (the rule of Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong). [These reigns] exemplify "a pragmatic ‘Way of the true King’” that combines justice with profit, virtue and strength, and power and flexibility.8 This way [of kingship] is worthy of contemporary China, committed [as it is] to realizing the "China Dream” of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation, including both hard and soft power, tempering justice with mercy, cooperation with struggle, and striking a balance between safeguarding its own interests and assuming international responsibilities.

Third, it requires being good at exploiting contradictions, leveraging our strength to maximum effect, utilizing geopolitical stratagems and diplomatic maneuvers, planning and moving with initiative, preventing [situations where we] are passive targets, and controlling others instead of being controlled by others.

Following the guideline above, the strategic objectives should include both short-term and long-term goals, falling in four time periods:

First, over the next five years (2013-2017): our objective is to improve the institutional architecture and processes of national security work, enhance the means and capabilities of national security work, and create opportunities for comprehensively deepening reforms, maintaining medium-to-high-speed economic growth, and promoting the transformation of developmental methods for use in a favorable domestic and international security environments. The objective is to provide a strong security guarantee for the successful implementation of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan” and "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan,” safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, ensure overall peace and tranquility in the security environment of our periphery, and steadily expand overseas interests.

Second, by the eve of the “first hundred years,” the centenary of the founding of the Party (2020): maintain the “Important Period of Strategic Opportunity” and “promote the modernization of the state governing system and capacity,”9 in order to achieve “the completion of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.” The strategic goal is to create a favorable domestic and international security environment, and gradually become an active sculptor of the international security environment on our periphery and internationally.

Third, during the “30-year gap” between the centennial of the Party and the centennial of the People's Republic of China (2021-2049):  our objective is to ensure stable domestic governance, sculpt the international security environment in a more proactive manner,  increase the provision of "public goods" for international security, and realize a positive and complementary relationship between the broader domestic and international security landscapes. Meanwhile, during this period we need to achieve complete national unity and territorial integrity in an appropriate manner.

Fourth, by the bi-centennial of  the People's Republic of China and the middle of this century (2050): our strategic objective is to become a “middle developed country,” realize the “China Dream” of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation, and create a favorable domestic and international security environment. [China should] become a major architect of the new regional security order and a major participant within a new international security.

Strategic Deployment and Strategic Focus Points

The strategic deployment of the national security strategy should uphold the principles of: balancing effort in both the internal and external domains, with a focus on the internal as the top priority and the external as a secondary priority; advancing on all fronts, while maintaining focus on prominent areas; taking both traditional and non-traditional security into account; making extensive use of standardized management, preemptive warning and emergency response, and crisis management and control. To put it more concretely, [our policy] should focus on the following eight domains of security strategy:

First: Political Security. To maintain social stability on a broad scale, a more total harmony, and the security of our sovereign power,10 we must strengthen the fight against separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism, help populations that are vulnerable [to infiltration or indoctrination] through the comprehensive deepening of reform, the promotion of fairness and justice, resolving social contradictions, perfecting ethnic and religious policy, continuing to construct institutional procedures to counter corruption, and continuously improving the governing capabilities of the Communist Party of China.

Second: Strategic Security. We must develop relations with major powers in a comprehensive and balanced manner. We must actively promote Sino-US relations according to the New Model of Great Power Relations, expanding areas of cooperation, and managing areas of competition. We must steadily deepen our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination with Russia,11 and promote “coordination based on benefit and equality” between China and the EU. We must improve the “BRICS” mechanism, expand and strengthen mutual trust and cooperation among emerging powers, prevent them from being divided by Western powers, and prevent them from being repressed by Western powers.

Third: Security on the Periphery. We must perfect our geo-strategic deployment, taking an integrated approach to our position both on land and at sea, while focusing our efforts on opening up new maritime capacity. We must resolutely resist Japan's rightward shift, fight a “new protracted war”13 to catch up with Japan in a comprehensive manner, and prevent the United States and Japan from joining forces. We must effectively manage the hotspots and problems on our periphery, properly resolve disputes in the South China Sea, increase non-traditional security cooperation, and enhance our peripheral security discursive power.

Fourth: Military Security. We must steadily advance China's military modernization, strengthen and refine preparations for military struggle, enhance military deterrence, and resolutely defend our territorial integrity. [We must] strengthen military diplomacy and enhance mutual trust; As for the sea, outer space, the internet, the polar regions, and other “global commons,” we must increase our investment [in them] in order to seize the commanding heights of the future.

Fifth: Economic Security. We must vigorously support national industries and domestic brands, actively invest in state-of-the-art technologies, new industries and the new energy revolution, gradually reduce dependence on external energy resources, maintain financial security through reforming and strengthening risk management; [we must] steadily promote the construction of economic cooperation in our periphery and in global free trade zones; we must construct and actively participate in global economic governance, expand the right to formulate international economic and trade rules, prevent the adverse effects of TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), and strengthen the protection of our overseas interests by formulating and implementing the “Go Out Policy.”

Sixth: Cultural Security. We must uphold “putting our own autonomy at the center, use the past to serve the present, use Western ideas to serve China, and synthesize [both Chinese traditional culture and foreign ideas] in order to innovate.” [We must] create core Chinese values that are convincing, attractive, competitive [with outside ideals], and which have the power to make others identify with them. We must strengthen civic education and traditional cultural education, and take an integrated approach to internal and external propaganda, improve our methods and manner in the struggle for public opinion in the Internet age, effectively enhance the credibility and discursive power of the Party and the government, expand and strengthen national cultural industries, and proactively respond to the persistent intrusion of Western values ​​and ideology.

Seventh: Information and Network Security. At the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, General-Secretary Xi specifically pointed out that “network and information security involves national security and social stability and is a new comprehensive challenge that we face.” [He also said] “the current management system has obvious drawbacks, mainly redundancy in management, overlapping functions, gaps between decision-making authorities and management responsibilities, and inefficiency.” In face of the rapidly expanding user base of social networks and communication tools which instantly disseminates information, exerts great influence among a wide audience, and has the power to mobilize large masses (such as Wechat, Weibo, and so forth), we need to think about how to strengthen legal control, how to direct public opinion online, and how to maintain the orderly dissemination of information, as well as maintain state security and social stability. These questions have become increasingly pressing. [General-Secretary Xi] emphasizes the need to “integrate the functions of relevant institutions, form a joint force in internet management from technology to content, from daily security to combating crimes, and ensure the correct use and security of the internet.”

Eighth: Non-traditional Security. This mainly includes: public health and food safety; effectively dealing with with major epidemics, such as the new respiratory virus raging in the Middle East;14 and ecological security, which we should [manage by] strengthening disaster prevention and rescue/relief work to prevent the severe damage caused by extreme weather and other major natural disasters, such as Typhoon Haiyan, which recently hit the Philippines.15

1. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee was held in Beijing from November 9 to 12, 2013. The Plenum adopted the “Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform” and received to Xi Jinping’s statement on the “Decision.” 
2. See “zhonggong zhongyang guanyu quanmian shenhua gaige ruogan zhongda wenti de jueding 中共中央关于全面深化改革若干重大问题的决定 [Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform],” Xinhua, November 2013.
3. Since 2013, China has passed several national security laws and policies, including the 2015 National Security Law, the 2017 Cybersecurity Law, and the 2017 National Intelligence Law, which all aim to enhance China's ability to identify and counter potential threats to its national security. In addition, China has also passed a national security strategy that remains classified. For a concise overview of these developments, see Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,” China Leadership Monitor, 1 September 2022.
4. The two events listed here exemplify what the CPC identifies as “non-traditional” threats to national security. The first event was a terrorist attack that occurred in Tienanmen Square on October 28, 2013, when a man drove a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, killing five and injuring forty. China's security chief attributed the attack to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party, which subsequently claimed responsibility and threatened future attacks. The latter reference is to the surveillance operations of the  United State’s National Security Agency, which former CIA employee Edward Snowden leaked to South China Morning Post in 2013.
5. Social unrest in China increased at an alarming rate in the years before this essay was written. There are few incidents of public demonstrations, disruptive actions or riots occurred in the early 1980s. By 1993 this number had risen to 8,700 “mass incidents”; by 2005, their number had grown tenfold, to 87,000. Estimates for the number of public protests in 2010 range between 180,000 and 230,000. Christian Gobel and Lynette H. Ong, “Social Unrest in China,” Europe China Research and Advice Network, 2012.
6. Around the time this piece was published, the United States and Japan were reshaping and strengthening their alliance in response to security challenges in the Asia Pacific. In November 2001, the government of Junichiro Koizumi dispatched the Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Indian Ocean to provide logistical support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. In 2003, it sent forces to aid in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction efforts. These operations marked a period of increased defense cooperation between the U.S. and Japan. Later, during Shinzo Abe’s first term as prime minister between 2006 and 2007, he attempted to form the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD or “the quad”) – composed of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia.  Prime Minister Abe would use the template to push for an informal security framework to address Japan’s concerns regarding China’s growing power. Abe returned to power less than a year before this piece was published on a platform that put the threat posed by China to Japanese interests at the center of the election. The United States met his election with statements reaffirming America's commitment to defend Japan in the event of a military conflict over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Chain.
7. “Comprehensive security” and “overall security” refer to China's national security outlook that combines traditional and non-traditional security concerns and connects the country's economic development with its security strategies. Both first entered into wide circulation after the 18th Party's Congress. See “xue xi wang ping: jian chi xi tong si wei gou jian da an quan ge ju 学习网评:坚持系统思维构建大安全格局 [Study network comment: adhere to the system thinking to build a large security pattern],” Xinhua, December 2020.
8. During the Western Han Dynasty, there were three prosperous eras that spanned from the reign of Emperors Wen (180-157 BCE) and Jing (157-141 BCE) to the reign of Emperors Wu (141-87 BCE) and Xuan (74-48 BCE). The Tang Dynasty experienced a period of prosperity that started with the reign of Zhenguan under Emperor Taizong (627 -649 CE) and continued until the prosperous age of Kaiyuan under Emperor Xuanzong (712-741 CE). In the early Qing Dynasty, the reigns of Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong were particularly notable for their achievements and stability. The Kangxi era, which lasted from 1661 to 1722, is known for its expansion of the empire, while the Yongzheng era, which spanned from 1722 to 1735, was marked by economic and administrative reforms. Finally, the Qianlong era, which ran from 1735 to 1796, was characterized by cultural achievements and a period of relative stability.

On the “way of the true king” see our glossary entry HEGEMONISM.
9.  “The modernization of the national governing system and capacity” is an objective first proposed at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 12, 2013. One Chinese scholar dubs this objective the “fifth pillar” of modernization following the earlier pillars of modernization in industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology. See “Decision Of The Central Committee Of The Communist Party Of China On Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening The Reform,” USC US-China Institute, November 12, 2013. For a discussion of the concept as the “fifth pillar” of modernization in Chinese, see Xu Yaotong, “Yingti ‘Guojia Zhili Xiandai Hua’ 应提‘国家治理现代化’ [Examining ‘The Modernization of National Governance’],” Beijing Daily, 30 May 2014.
10. Translated here as “security of our sovereign power,” the term zhèngquán ānquán [政权安全] is difficult to render accurately into English. When Chinese translate English phrases like “regime change” into Chinese, 政权 (zhèngquán) is the word they most often us for “regime.” “Regime security” is therefore an acceptable gloss. Yet unlike the English “regime,” zhèngquán does not describe the institutional architecture of rulership so much as the sovereign power that rulership grants. Thus its appearance in Mao’s most famous aphorism: “枪杆子里面出政权” [usually translated as “political power (zhèngquán) grows from the barrel of a gun”].
11. The formulation “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination” dates back to the 1989 Sino-Soviet Summit, in which Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Beijing to meet with Deng and other Chinese leaders. The visit signified the renormalization of Sino-Soviet relations following their conflict in the 1950s. The Chinese relationship with Russia survived the Soviet collapse. In 2001, China and Russia inked the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, which “endeavor[ed] to enhance relations between the two countries to a completely new level.” In 2011, the two countries celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation by elevating their partnership to a “comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation." Eight years later, they upgraded their relationship once again to a “comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation for a new era." See “How Has the China-Russia Relationship Evolved?,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 26 March 2021.
12. “Coordination based on benefits and equality” is another catchphrase in China's partnership diplomacy.
13.  Chinese state media first started to claim that Sino-Japanese relations have entered a “new protracted war” in January 2014, following former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine, a nationally significant Shinto shrine and war museum that commemorates those who died in service of Japan, including those who served during the Second Sino-Japanese War. China's relationship with Japan deteriorated after Abe's visit. See “Anbei baigui ling zhongri xianxin ‘chijiu zhan’ 安倍拜鬼令中日陷新‘持久战’ [Abe's ghost worshiping puts China and Japan in a new ‘protracted war’],” China News, 22 January 2014.
14. The author is referring to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2012. The outbreak originated in Saudi Arabia and quickly spread to other countries in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the United States.
15. Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines on November 8, 2013, causing widespread devastation and loss of life. The storm affected over 14 million people, destroyed homes, infrastructure, and crops, and led to over 6,000 deaths.

需要抓紧谋划国家安全战略,通过积极主动的顶层设计与战略运筹,助推国家安全工作与民族复兴伟业。

中共十八届三中全会决定设立国家安全委员会(以下简称“国安委”)意义非同凡响,其有助于以安全保发展、实现发展与安全并举;有助于统筹国内与国际两个大局、贯通外事与内事;有助于打破部门利益羁绊、维护整体国家利益;有助于中国从容参与大国战略博弈、引领世界和平发展大潮。

设立“国安委”是具有中国特色的国家安全工作体制机制创新,标志着国家安全工作进入了 “中央强有力统筹、跨部门整合、从战略上主动运筹” 的历史新阶段,需要抓紧谋划国家安全战略,通过积极主动的顶层设计与战略运筹,助推国家安全工作与民族复兴伟业。

当前国家安全环境

对于设立“国安委”,习近平总书记在会上作了专门说明。他开宗明义地指出,“国家安全和社会稳定是改革发展的前提。只有国家安全和社会稳定,改革发展才能不断推进”。关于设立“国安委”的必要性与紧迫性,习总书记又指出,“当前,我国面临对外维护国家主权、安全、发展利益,对内维护政治安全和社会稳定的双重压力,各种可以预见和难以预见的风险因素明显增多。而我们的安全工作体制机制还不能适应维护国家安全的需要,需要搭建一个强有力的平台统筹国家安全工作。设立国家安全委员会,加强对国家安全工作的集中统一领导,已是当务之急”。

习总书记还明确了“国安委”的主要职责,即“制定和实施国家安全战略,推进国家安全法治建设,制定国家安全工作方针政策,研究解决国家安全工作中的重大问题”。其中,制定“国家安全战略”亦被提上议事日程。国家安全战略既是一项庞大的系统工程,对中国而言更是一种新生事物,需要集思广益、群策群力、超前谋划。

全盘审视和谋划国家安全战略,首先需要准确把握当前中国国家安全形势与环境的总体特征。具体而言大致包括如下三点:

一是“内忧”与“外患”并存。在全方位对外开放条件下与全球化、信息化、网络化时代,影响国家安全的内部因素与外部因素互动频繁,乃至产生联动效应。对中国而言,作为快速崛起的社会主义发展中大国,一方面“外患”有增无减、复杂嬗变、层出不穷,另一方面,影响国内改革发展稳定大局的“内忧”仍然存在,国家安全工作的重心仍在国内。

二是国家安全的“内涵”更加复杂,“外延”更加宽广。内涵更复杂是指国家安全的主体虽基本维持不变,即作为整体的主权国家及其中央政府,但客体却越来越多,既包括作为个体的位于中国境内的中外法人与个人,也包括位于境外的中国法人与个人。随着中国企业与公民大踏步地“走出去”,中国国家安全的边界日益向外延伸,维护与拓展“海外利益”日趋成为中国国家安全的一项重大工作; 外延更宽广则是指国家安全所涵盖的领域越来越多、越来越广。

三是传统与非传统安全并存,传统安全仍吃重,非传统安全更复杂。维护政治与社会稳定、巩固政权安全、捍卫国家统一与领土完整等传统安全压力不减,恐怖主义、网络安全、气候变化等非传统安全压力增大,例如“东伊运”幕后指使实施的北京天安门金水桥恐怖袭击事件,以及美国国安局前雇员斯诺登曝光的美对华网络渗透等。

其次,需要分辨国家安全所面临的机遇与挑战,尤需厘清国家安全威胁的轻重缓急。

具体而言,中国国家安全面临的机遇主要有二:

一是中国自身综合实力不断增强,中国特色社会主义政治与经济体制更加成熟、具有很大的优越性,以习近平为总书记的新一届中央领导集体统筹内外、励精图治、放眼全球、更加主动有为;

二是全球化与多极化难以逆转,世界力量对比“新陈代谢”与“新升旧降”对中国有利。

中国国家安全面临的挑战大致包括如下五点:

一是国内转型期社会矛盾累积,各类群体性事件多发易发,外部敌对势力趁机插手利用,维护社会和谐稳定与统筹推进改革难度增大。

二是“台独”、“藏独”、“东突独”等分裂势力蠢蠢欲动,国际反华势力对其加以扶持利用,反分裂、反恐、反宗教极端主义任务艰巨。

三是中国加速崛起改变了国际与地区格局,引发西方大国不安不满与周边个别国家反弹对抗。战略重心“东移”亚太的美国竭力维持世界霸权与亚太主导权,中美博弈更加敏感复杂激烈。日本不甘被中国全面赶超,企图摆脱和平宪法掣肘、实现军事大国野心。美日同盟加深、彼此相互利用,导致周边环境的“安全系数”下降,海洋争端加剧。

四是中国经济持续中高速增长严重依赖于境外能源资源进口与国际市场需求,经济安全存在很大的脆弱性,容易受制于人。

五是全球气候变化与中国生态环境恶化叠加,重大自然灾害趋于频繁、危害加大。

战略方针与战略目标

维护国家安全的战略方针宜采“辩证统筹、古为今用、主动运筹、循序渐进”的原则,其要有三:

一是强化与贯彻“综合安全”、“大安全”理念,统筹国内安全与国际安全,统筹传统与非传统安全,统筹应对现实威胁与长远挑战。

二是大力弘扬中华优秀传统“战略文化”,中国传统的政治智慧与谋略思想博大精深、堪称“战略宝库”,理应系统整理、古为今用,尤其是以西汉(从文景之治到武宣之政)、盛唐(从贞观之治到开元盛世)与清朝前期(康雍乾)三大盛世为代表,义利兼顾、德力俱足、刚柔并济的“务实王道”,也值得致力于实现中华民族伟大复兴“中国梦”的当代中国所发扬光大,包括软硬兼施、恩威并施、合作与斗争并举、维护自身利益与承担国际责任兼顾。

三是善于利用矛盾、借力打力、纵横捭阖,应主动谋划、积极博弈,防止被动挨整,制人而非制于人。

在此战略方针下,应由近及远、制定分阶段的国家安全战略目标,大致包括以下四个时间段:

一是从现在开始的未来5年(2013--2017年),目标是完善国家安全工作体制机制,增强国家安全工作手段与能力,为全面深化改革、保持经济中高速增长、推进发展方式转变创造有利的国内国际安全环境,为“十二五”与“十三五”规划顺利实施提供强有力的安全保障,捍卫主权统一与领土完整,确保周边安全环境总体和平安宁,稳步拓展海外利益。

二是在“第一个一百年”即建党一百周年前夕(2020年),维护好“重要战略机遇期”,“推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化”,为实现“全面建成小康社会”战略目标创造有利的国内国际安全环境,逐步成为周边乃至国际安全环境的主动塑造者。

三是在建党百年与建国百年这两个“一百年”之间的近30年“空档期”(2021--2049年),稳扎稳打,促进国内长治久安,更加积极主动地塑造国际安全环境,增加对国际安全“公共产品”的提供,实现国内与国际安全两个大局良性互动、相得益彰,并在此期间以适当方式实现国家完全的统一与领土完整。

四是在“第二个一百年”即建国一百周年之际与本世纪中叶(2050年),为实现成为“中等发达国家”的战略目标、实现中华民族伟大复兴的“中国梦”创造有利的国内国际安全环境,成为周边安全新秩序的主要建构者与国际安全新秩序的主要参与者。

战略布局与战略重点

国家安全战略布局应坚持“内外兼修、内主外辅、全面推进、重点突出”的原则,统筹兼顾传统与非传统安全,综合运用常态化管理、事先预警与应急处置、危机管控,具体与扼要而言,包括以下八大领域的安全战略:

一是政治安全。强化反分裂、反暴恐、反宗教极端主义斗争,通过全面深化改革扶助弱势群体、增强公平正义、化解社会矛盾,完善民族与宗教政策,加大反腐败制度建设,不断提升中国共产党的执政能力,维护社会大局稳定、总体和谐与政权安全。

二是战略安全。全面与均衡发展与各大国的关系,积极推进中美新型大国关系、扩大合作面、管理竞争面。稳步深化中俄全面战略协作伙伴关系,促进中欧互利平等合作。完善“金砖国家”机制,做大做强新兴大国互信合作,防止被西方大国分化,防止被西方大国联手压制。

三是周边安全。完善地缘战略布局,统筹经略陆海、着力开拓海洋。坚决遏制日本右倾化,打好全面赶超日本的“新持久战”,防止美日联手使坏。有效处置周边热点、难点,妥善化解南海争端,加大非传统安全合作,增强周边安全话语权。

四是军事安全。扎实推进中国军事现代化,强化细化军事斗争准备,增强军事威慑力,坚决捍卫领土完整。加强军事外交,增进军事互信。对海洋、太空、网络、极地等“全球公地”加大投入,抢占未来制高点。

五是经济安全。大力扶持民族产业与自主品牌,积极投身世界新科技、新产业与新能源革命,逐步减少对外能源资源依赖,通过改革与强化风险管理维护金融安全,稳步推进周边经济合作机制建设与全球自贸区建设,积极参与全球经济治理,扩大国际经贸规则制定权,预防TPP(跨太平洋伙伴关系协议)与TTIP(跨大西洋贸易与投资伙伴协议)的不利影响,通过制定并实施“走出去战略”强化海外利益保护。

六是文化安全。坚持“以我为主、古为今用、洋为中用、综合创新”,打造有说服力、吸引力、亲和力、竞争力的当代中国核心价值观,强化公民教育与传统文化教育,统筹内宣与外宣,改进网络时代舆论斗争方式方法,有效增强党和政府公信力与话语权,做大做强民族文化产业,主动应对西方强势价值观与意识形态渗透。

七是信息网络安全。习总书记在十八届三中全会上专门指出,“网络和信息安全牵涉到国家安全和社会稳定,是我们面临的新的综合性挑战”。“现行管理体制存在明显弊端,主要是多头管理、职能交叉、权责不一、效率不高”。“特别是面对传播快、影响大、覆盖广、社会动员能力强的微博、微信等社交网络和即时通信工具用户的快速增长,如何加强网络法制建设和舆论引导,确保网络信息传播秩序和国家安全、社会稳定,已经成为摆在我们面前的现实突出问题”。强调要“整合相关机构职能,形成从技术到内容、从日常安全到打击犯罪的互联网管理合力,确保网络正确运用和安全”。

八是其他非传统安全。主要包括公共卫生与食品安全,应预防与有效处置重大疫情,如正在中东肆虐的新型呼吸道病毒;以及生态环境安全,应加强灾害预防与抢险救灾工作,防止极端气候与其他重大自然灾害引发严重破坏,如近期重创菲律宾的“海燕”台风等。

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