CHINA'S GLOBAL SECURITY INITIATIVE STOKING REGIONAL TENSIONS

Abstract

How China's Global Security Initiative launched in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine will challenge ASEAN centrality and further polarize strategic relations in the Indo-Pacific.

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S E A R C H
HOME ARTICLES CHINA’S GLOBAL SECURITY
INITIATIVE STOKING REGIONAL TENSIONS
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose during their meeting in Beijing, on 4 February
2022. (Photo: Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik / AFP)
China’s Global Security Initiative Stoking Regional
Tensions
PU BLI SHE D 1 5 J UL 202 2
DAVID ARASE

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China has doubled down on its alignment with Russia against the
West. This has led to a proliferation of minilaterals and security
partnerships aligned with the United States.
i Jinping launched theGlobal Security Initiative(GSI) at the Boao Forum for
Asia on 21 April 2022, after theUSand itsEuropean alliespressed China to
call for a halt to Russian aggression against Ukraine. The GSI is itself a
culmination of recent trends and events: the Russian invasion of Ukraine in
February, the growing alignment between China and Russia, and an effort to stop
what Xi sees to be an Asian analogue to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
Recall that as Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s border, President Vladimir Putin
met Xi in Beijing on 4 February 2022. They issued ajoint statementwhich declared
a “friendship with no limits” and “cooperation with no “forbidden areas”, and
specically condemned NATO enlargement in Europe as well as the United States’
Indo-Pacic strategy in Asia. Three weeks later, Russia invaded Ukraine. China’s
continued its rhetorical support for Russia’s war and cast the blame on NATO. This
brought Western countries to see Xi, whose worldview and revisionist international
agenda closely aligns with Putin’s, as “a challenge to our interests, our security
and our values“.
Xi’s GSI speech doubled down on his alignment with Russia against the
“hegemonism” of the West. He called for “common, comprehensive, cooperative and
sustainable security” that respects “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all
countries”, “non-interference in domestic affairs”, and “the independent choices of
development paths and social systems made by people in different countries”. More
importantly, Xi asked his Asian audience to “reject a Cold War mentality”, “oppose
unilateralism”, and “say no to group politics and bloc confrontation”.
Soon after, China’sFirst Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng explained the
thinking behind GSIto a China-hosted global forum of think tanks. He repeated the
themes in Xi’s speech but Le went further, arguing that the US has been “exing its
muscle(s)” in China’s periphery, creating exclusive groups arrayed against China and
stoking Taiwan tensions to test China. He posed a question: “If this is not an Asia-
Pacic version of NATO’s eastward expansion, then what is? Such a strategy, if left
unchecked, would bring horrible consequences and push the Asia-Pacic over the
edge of an abyss.”
The fact is, in recent years, the US has accrued no new treaty allies in Asia.
Washington has pursued exible minilateral partnerships, not alliances, such as the
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and the Australia-United Kingdom-US
(AUKUS) deal, and bilateral security partnerships with countries such as Singapore
and Vietnam.

GSI builds on slogans and inuence developed by earlier Xi initiatives, which include
the “new type of great power relations” that called on the US to respect China’s core
interests and withdraw from Asia. Also, the Belt and Road Initiative and the
“community of shared destiny for all mankind” promoted China-led visions of
economic and political global governance. What is new in GSI is the push for a
China-centered security community and new Chinese pressure on BRI partners to
join China’s militarising struggle against US “hegemonism.”
US allies inEuropeandAsiasee Russia and China joined at the hip
to challenge the democratic values, sovereign rights, and legal
protections coded into the Western-sponsored rules-based order. As
evidence of danger, they can point to Russia’s war in Ukraine and
China’s open preparations for armed conict along its Pacic
maritime and Indian land borders to seize claimed historical
territories and rights.
The logic behind the Sino-Russian partnership explains how it puts China and Russia
at loggerheads with US alliance members in Europe and Asia. After the Cold War,
NATO accepted membership applications from former Soviet satellite nations and
republics that had democratised. One could argue that thisNATO policy ignored
Russia’s desire for a great power sphere of interest in the post-Soviet space. In
his 9May 2022 Victory Day speech, Putin said this NATO policy gave Russia a
legitimatecasus bellibecause Russian interests and dignity deserved respect in lands
historically associated with Russian civilisation.
China shares this Russian conception that a great power should manage its
neighbourhood. Like Putin, Xi grows his military might, threatens neighbours with
punishment for disrespect, and above all wants US-led alliances banished from his
neighbourhood. Ironically, as with Europe, US-led security partnerships in Asia have
grown stronger precisely because China’s neighbours fear for their sovereignty and
territorial integrity.
US allies inEuropeandAsianow see Russia and China joined at the hip to challenge
the democratic values, sovereign rights, and legal protections coded into the
Western-sponsored rules-based order. As evidence of danger, they can point to
Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s open preparations for armed conict along its
Pacic maritime and Indian land borders to seize claimed historical territories and
rights.
This new reality has brought normally fractious EU and NATO members into close
unity to aid Ukraine, boost their own security efforts, and punish Russia with
sanctions. It also explains why at their June summit meetings, theG-
7andNATOagreed on measures to counter Chinese coercion in the Indo-Pacic,
and why democracies in Asia are joining hands in new defensive cooperation and
links with NATO. This counterbalancing against the new risks posed by China’s

growing bellicosity produced the Quad in 2017 and AUKUS in 2021. The Ukraine war
in 2022 crystallised new minilaterals, including a trilateralJapan-South Korea-US
security dialogue, the ve-memberPartners in the Blue Pacic(US, Japan, UK,
Australia, and New Zealand), and a “mini-Indo-Pacic Quad” consultation among
Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
In comparison, China’s GSI has produced little thus far. China announced a secretly
negotiatedbilateral security pactwith Solomon Islandsjust as GSI was launched.
However, in a subsequent meeting with 10 other members of the Pacic Islands
Forum, Foreign Minister Wang Yi could not persuade them to sign the same kind of
security agreement. Xi pushed GSI at theBRICSSummit in June. South Africa and
Russia endorsed it, but India and Brazil declined to do so.
Angry at how US allies and friends are rallying to defend the rules-based order,
China is requesting BRI partners to support GSI. What will this mean for Southeast
Asia? ASEAN members will be expected to endorse GSI and warned to avoid Western
partnerships. China will offer new types of security assistance and will use its
considerable means of economic persuasion. More confrontational strategic
signalling via People’s Liberation Army military exercises and obstructions of foreign
military vessels transiting China’s claimed maritime jurisdictions are also more
likely. Thus, GSI will likely increase regional tensions and further strain ASEAN’s
centrality and unity of purpose.
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AS EAN CH INA-U.S. RELATIONS
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