Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. xvi, 286 pp. (Tables, graphs.) US$100.00, cloth. ISBN 9780198867395.
China’s phenomenal rise over the past four decades has been first and foremost demonstrated through its ever-expanding economic footprint globally. Initially propelled by the country’s search for raw materials and energy, China’s increasing presence in recent years has been driven by its ambitious geo-economic project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was launched ten years ago by President Xi Jinping. Today, thousands of Chinese companies and millions of workers are located in all continents of the world. In addition, prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, over one hundred million Chinese travelled abroad as tourists, and hundreds of thousands of Chinese students are enrolled in institutions overseas, from middle schools to higher education.
With China’s growing global footprint, a significant portion of which is in the less stable yet resource-rich countries, its so-called “interest frontiers” have extended far beyond its periphery Asia-Pacific region. The security and protection of Chinese interests overseas, always a principal responsibility of the PRC government, have now assumed greater salience and become an important item on its foreign policy agenda. The 2011 evacuation of some 36,000 Chinese nationals out of Libya after the outbreak of civil war in that country was a critical moment that further highlighted the need to develop strategy and capacity, and for more effective policy coordination between various government agencies.
In Protecting China’s Interests Overseas, author Andrea Ghiselli provides a fascinating, carefully researched, and timely analysis of both the reconceptualization of what security means and what policy framework and resources are required as China goes global. Security is no longer just the protection of national sovereignty and territorial integrity—although these remain important—but protection of Chinese interests overseas against risks and threats to them. National development and economic security are part and parcel of the now broadened and refined national security. By focusing on what are viewed as non-traditional security challenges, from maritime piracy on the high seas to attacks against Chinese nationals operating in foreign countries, Ghiselli examines how Beijing redefines security, formulates policies, allocates resources, and coordinates among different government agencies to extend protection of Chinese interests overseas.
Ghiselli adopts the theory of securitization to examine how protecting Chinese interests overseas has been elevated to the top of Beijing’s policy agenda. The book begins with an analysis of the evolution of the concept of security as Chinese leaders from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping have assessed both the international environments and domestic priorities, since the “most important actors in the making of Chinese foreign and security policy are the CCP General Secretary” (9). This is followed by a discussion of civil-military relations in the Chinese context and how the Chinese leadership has broadened the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) mission to take on non-traditional security responsibilities. The book then briefly reviews China’s growing global presence, and how lack of knowledge about the new environments under which Chinese overseas interests operate remains a serious handicap to good policy making. It concludes with lessons drawn and what can be expected in Chinese foreign and security policy in the future.
Traditional concepts of security were primarily concerned with defending China against foreign threats to its sovereignty and territorial integrity. This required modernizing the military, along with the development of a comprehensive national power, in which economic growth became critical. “National security” in this sense was more about ensuring that China could have a relatively peaceful and stable environment conducive to economic development. The Chinese leadership under Jiang Zemin introduced the New Security Concept in the 1990s, which placed a greater emphasis on multilateral diplomacy and developing stable and friendly relationships with China’s neighbours. Overall, the concept of security remained that of national security, and the primary concerns were about the security environment surrounding China. The difference was more about the responses. While modernizing China’s military remained a key objective, there was also a recognition of the role of diplomacy and how security could be managed.
It was not until the early 2000s that the need to protect Chinese interests overseas from non-traditional security threats was recognized. President Hu Jintao called for the military to prepare for “diverse kinds of threats,” which referred to both traditional and non-traditional security threats. The “New Historic Mission” expected of the Chinese military required ability and readiness to respond to threats away from China’s periphery and of a non-traditional nature. The reference to the “Malacca Dilemma” and the dispatch of PLA Navy escorts to the Gulf of Aden are reflective of the new security concept during this period. With the launch of the BRI, and in particular the promulgation of the further refined new security concept under Xi Jinping, non-traditional security challenges have become an important policy agenda.
Using securitization theory as the analytical framework, Ghiselli discusses both the securitizing actor, i.e., the Chinese leadership, and the empowering audience, in this case, the Chinese military, a.k.a. the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), but also increasingly other interested stakeholders, including China’s growing private security companies (although more could have been discussed here, given the author’s extensive knowledge of the subject), some of which have been operating in countries along the BRI for escorting and protection of Chinese companies. The book goes to great lengths to discuss how the PLA has been instructed to take on more military operations other than war (MOOTW) not just in the domestic setting where the Chinese military has been routinely involved in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), but also increasingly dispatched to protect Chinese interests overseas. PLA Navy’s (PLAN) Gulf of Aden escorting mission since 2008 has been a case in point. Increasingly, Chinese participation in UN peacekeeping operations has also reflected Beijing’s new foreign policy views and provided the opportunity to extend protection to Chinese interests overseas.
The book is a fascinating read, and thoroughly researched using primary, Chinese-language sources not readily available to all researchers. These allow the author to uncover some of the processes and internal debates within China, on how the concepts of security have evolved over the years, who the securitizing actors have been, and what it takes to persuade the empowering audience to both accept and act on policies informed and formulated by the Chinese leaders’ new perspectives on security. In other words, Chinese foreign and security policy is much more than great-power rivalry with the United States, territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and potential military conflicts across the Taiwan Strait. Increasingly, protecting Chinese (economic) interests overseas is just as important as the traditional goals of national security. This is a welcome and timely addition to the existing scholarship on an emerging global power.
Jingdong Yuan
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Stockholm