The concept of holistic national security ( zh, s=总体国家安全观, hp=Zǒngtǐ guójiā ānquán guān), also translated as comprehensive national security, is a principle of
national security policy defined by
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...
general secretary
Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derive ...
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, ...
in 2014. According to this principle, dimensions such as economic security, cybersecurity, and
energy security
Energy security is the association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption. Access to (relatively) cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies. However, the uneven ...
are viewed as necessary to traditional national security concerns.
Development
Xi Jinping introduced the concept of holistic national security in 2014, which he defined as taking "the security of the people as compass, political security as its roots, economic security as its pillar, military security, cultural security, and cultural security as its protections, and that relies on the promotion of international security."
Holistic national security also emphasizes the need for energy security.
Xi created
National Security Commission of the Chinese Communist Party
The Central National Security Commission (CNSC; ) of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was established at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee in November 2013, during what was considered a "major re ...
, which focuses on holistic national security and addresses both external and internal security matters.
The concept has since been used as a tenet of the CCP's
Global Security Initiative
The Global Security Initiative (GSI, ) is an initiative proposed by Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping during the annual Boao Forum on 21 April 2022. Officially, the initiative is meant to "uphold the principle of indivisible s ...
.
In April 2021, the Research Centre for a Holistic Approach to National Security was established at the
China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations
The 11th Bureau of the Ministry of State Security, outwardly known as the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR; ; ) under an arrangement called "one institution with two names", is a set of research institutes operated ...
(CICIR) in order to further develop the concept of holistic national security.
was the Centre's secretary general during his term as CICIR president.
Researchers at the Centre view "great economic change" as an important component of "
great changes unseen in a century."
In a text issued in 2021, the Centre wrote that holistic national security threats are likely to emerge in "new frontiers" like polar regions, deep sea, the internet, artificial intelligence, and space.
In this view, the development of these new frontiers creates uncertainty because they do not have clear geographical borders and therefore transcend traditional ideas of sovereignty.
See also
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Ideology of the Chinese Communist Party
The ideology of the Chinese Communist Party has undergone dramatic changes throughout the years, especially during Deng Xiaoping's leadership and the contemporary leadership of Xi Jinping.
Ideology
In the early days of this party, the pre ...
References
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Xi Jinping
Government of China
National security by country