In a keynote address delivered at the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in April of 2022, China’s President, H.E Xi Jinping introduced to his audience for the very first time a concept aimed at guiding the world through the security questions of the modern age dubbed the Global Security Initiative (GSI). A report released by the China Institute of International Studies in April this year showed that GSI had garnered support from 130 countries by the end of last year and that it had “also been explicitly written into more than 140 bilateral and multilateral” agreements. This degree of success makes it worthwhile to examine the factors that have underpinned it.
A key attribute of GSI is that it maps a picture of security that is holistic. An understandable yet catastrophic mistake that many individuals working in this area make is to reduce security to all things military. This leaves out several realities and as a result, their outlook inevitably turnouts to be inaccurate. By contrast, President Xi’s BFA speech brought with it the missing pieces to the puzzle. For instance, the Asian politician pointed out therein that economic realities can become instability catalysts giving the examples of food scarcity and fuel prices.
GSI has also sought modalities that respond to the dynamics of local settings rather than devising one-size-fits-all measures. This tenet is best exemplified in the initiative’s concept paper. In relation to the Pacific Island countries, the document highlights climate change as an existential concern in the region not least, due to the situation of natural disasters that it has occasioned there. Further, the concept paper adopts language that will be already familiar to national policy makers yet unlikely to be understood (later on considered) by the international community e.g. “the ASEAN way of consensus-building” for the case of Asia.
But GSI architects did not stop at diagnosing the challenges at hand. Consequently, the Global Security Initiative pays keen attention to institutions and systems urging states to keep up with their enabling mechanisms. These include; the China-Horn of Africa Peace, Governance and Development Conference, the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, and the Middle East Security Forum. Internationally, Beijing’s approach under GSI has been two-pronged i.e. supporting existing bodies without shying away from working hand-in-hand with entities for whom it can more readily leverage its influence to address problems that would have been nearly impossible to overcome otherwise.
Institutions in the former category include the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council whereas the latter entails among others, the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum. This demonstrates a sophistication that accepts the place of prevailing norms without sacrificing expediency. In that way, the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) GSI is nothing like the populists who present themselves as critics of the excesses of globalism. The distinction stems from the fact that even if one was to concede to the protectionists’ point of view, it is quite clear that its movers fall short when it comes to what they conceive of as the place of diplomacy post the United Nations. Moreover, unlike GSI, majority of these characters have only sought to rely on the said rhetoric because it serves their selfish interests. If it seized to, they would abandon it without the slightest hesitation.
To illustrate these parallels, one need only examine what either of these actors emphasizes as the good and not so good about the current global order. In the case of the anti-globalists, all that they are interested in is advancing the law of the jungle (survival of the fittest). PRC on the other hand, considers respect for sovereignty as one of the greatest achievements of the post-World War II dispensation. Indeed, a bulk of the Global Security Initiative is dedicated to upholding the principle of non-intervention as enshrined under the UN Charter. The rationale here is that regardless of its stature, a country is better off being on good terms with its compatriots than not since doing so fosters cooperation which in return makes it possible for humanity to focus on her common problems.
The alternative is wastage of resources as nations scramble to keep on top of the ensuing disarray. One wants to imagine that everyone would be willing to work towards avoiding this outcome. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Joshua Kingdom is a lawyer and a Research Fellow at the Development Watch Centre
