China security strategy emphasizes domestic stability, regional dominance, and global influence, focusing on technological advancement and military modernization to secure its interests and expand its power.
Domestic Security Policy
The Chinese system of domestic security has been carefully thought out to protect the stability of the country and the monopoly of information by the ruling Communist Party.
Panopticism Surveillance and Social Control
China has one of the largest systems for mass surveillance of its own population, but it also extensively spies on its neighbours. One thing is a network of 200 million plus CCTV cameras, most of them with facial recognition capabilities. Through this, with the use of AI tech analyzing normal behaviors and pointing out suspicious activities to local authorities, the system is reinforced. This massive surveillance grid is essential to the continued regime of public order, and to prevent any organised discontent.
The Control Of The Internet and Media
In China’s security strategy, you need to control information. One of the key instruments in this effort is the Great Firewall of China, which prevents access to literally thousands of sites and services, e.g. Google, Facebook and Twitter, and filters out whatever content may incite public unrest or otherwise, question the authority of the party. However, this censorship also filters through the media world, with news outlets being given a strict guide on what they can print.
Handling Dissent and Unrest
Facing domestic opposition in any form is a threat to China, where authorities manage internal dissent with a combination of pre-emptive measures and harsh legal action. An example is the imposition of the National Security Law for Hong Kong in 2020, which has largely reinforced the existing laws on national security. As such, the law has resulted in the detention of many activists and become a potent weapon in shutting down freedoms more broadly in the territory, in line with Beijing’s aim of governing the region with a framework of laws.
Counterterrorism Efforts
China’s tough counterterrorism measures have employed re-education camps – widely condemned as abuse in areas like Xinjiang. Called Vocational Education and Training Centers, the facilities have been lambasted by rights groups for being counter-extremism camps that have abused human rights. The government says these measures have resulted in a sharp decline in terrorism in the area, as evidenced by a reduction in violent incidents over the past several years.
Regional Security Strategy
China’s overall regional security strategy is sophisticated and multidimensional, aimed at both enhancing its stature in Asia and containing its far-reaching maritime and land border conflicts. The LOC strategy integrates a range of diplomatic, economic and military activities to safeguard Chinese regional primacy and counter threats below the threshold of war.
Military Grow and Reform
China has modernised its military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), turning it powerful enough to potentially allow it to reach out across the region. These include operationalizing one of the most powerful navies on the planet. The Chinese navy has commissioned aircraft carriers the Liaoning and the Shandong, meaning that they are making a serious effort to develop blue-water naval capabilities. The PLA Air Force has also integrated a growing number of domestically made J-20 stealth fighters, which are envisioned to help the service maintain air superiority in the region.
The Belt and Road Initiative
C Big Investment Plan DID YOU TRY?=[],The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a global infrastructure and economic development behemoth initiated by China in 2013 to serve its interests in connectivity with nearly 70 countries across Asia, Europe & Africa. China, by investing in ports, railways and roads, is not only expanding its economic tentacles but also making a strategic depth in important geo-economic regions. This initiative was also often seen as a strategic effort to anchor China in global trade and give it more sway over the rest of the world.
Handling Territorial Disputes
There is no single way to describe China’s efforts at territorial management, but managing competition is about what Beijing does in terms of negotiating diplomacy, capacity protection, and direct coercion. Despite international condemnation and a ruling against its maritime claims by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016, China has continued its construction and militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea. Today, the islands double as military bases, helping China to enforce its territorial claims and better project power across critical international shipping lanes.
Collaborations & Allies
To balance out the sheer volume of US power in the vicinity, China has aggressively sought to build stronger relationships with neighboring countries via options like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). China has become particularly close with Russia, staging joint military exercises and coordinating their foreign policies to reduce American influence in Asia. Further, China engages in dialogues with ASEAN countries in order to control regional tensions and project itself as a regional leader.
Global Security Strategy
China’s war planning would do not only reflect Beijing’s aspirations in global politics, but particularly its ambitions to be an essential world power and to affect the international system in a way that suits its interests and ideologies. Deploying a broad array of economic, political, and military tools, the successful execution of this strategy will ensure that China continually strengthens its global authority and manages its international challenges.
Broadening Global Military Imprint
In 2017, China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti — a clear sign of the country’s attempts to extend its global military reach. The base is near some of the world’s biggest shipping lanes in the Red Sea and within proximity of the strategically important chokepoints of the Bab al-Mandab Strait and around 80 kilometers north of another Chinese facility in Djibouti — the latter of which outlets Beijing’s naval reach into the Indian Ocean and where China has helped build critical infrastructure. It will also permit them with a strategic base that acts as an outpost for power projection many times further away, and a physical region to that can be used to secure their sea lanes.
Participation in international Organization
China, for example, uses international organizations very actively to further its global security interests. It has a permanent chair on the United Nations Security Council, which is frequently used to veto measures that affect global security and it has a few strategic interests. China not only has stepped up support of UN peacekeeping, now contributing thousands of troops and also leading missions such as those in Mali and South Sudan, it has increased its engagement in other areas, something that does not typically make the headlines.
Blue-Water Naval Capabilities Development
One of the mainstays of China’s global security strategy is the aggressive move by Beijing to transform the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) from a near seas/soft coastal defense force to an expeditionary blue-water navy with the capability of sustaining operations across the open ocean. These encompass the deployment of aircraft carriers as well as the construction of more sophisticated submarines and destroyers. These capabilities allow China to protect its international sea-lanes and also to claim a powerful edge of the naval proficiency of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Economic Partnership Strategies
One of the ways in which China is pursuing its global security strategy is through economic partnerships, strategic ones with far reaching consequences, such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This initiative has both increased the economic opportunities in China, and increased China’s political options as it enter debt diplomacy with others. China invests in key infrastructure in Asia, Africa and Europe — so it can exert economic and political pressure on a global scale.
Space Operations & Cybersecurity
China has progressed in terms of its cyber and space capacities to protect its national interests and strategic advantages. To improve its communication and intelligence capabilities, it has launched many satellites. To make matters worse, long-time rival China is well-known for its advanced state-sponsored cyber operations against governmental and commercial organizations globally to aid its national security and technological development efforts.