Beijing [China], March 30: With the “Global Security Initiative” (GSI) announced in April 2022, Xi Jinping is trying to offer China as an honest broker in conflicts which is counter to the actual Chinese policies and actions which demonstrate its contempt for the United Nations Charter and UN entities when they are opposed to Beijing’s bullying tactics in the South China Sea.
The “Global Security Initiative” (GSI) announced by Xi Jinping in April 2022 is supposed to present a new plan for a “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.”
The initiative has been finally elaborated nine months later in the form of a concept note after the start of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s third term as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The GSI appears to be repackaged from Xi Jinping’s speeches on a global Sinocentric order at the Conference on Interaction and confidence-building measures in Asia (CICA) and other past statements.
The basic principles of the GSI include China’s offer of itself as an honest broker in conflicts while respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations and upholding the principles of the United Nations Charter. These are the noble ambitions which are not followed through by actual Chinese policy.
In the South China Sea, China is a regional bully which ignores the interests of Vietnam and the Philippines, as per the news report. China also inhibits these small countries from oil exploration in their own territorial seas. Beijing does not respect the United Nations Convention on Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the South China sea.
China’s unilateral actions demonstrate its contempt for the United Nations Charter and UN entities when they are opposed to Beijing’s needs. Another point mentioned in the GSI that China does not respect in practice is that it seeks to replace United Nations institutions with those that it can control or dominate.
Its example is China’s attempt to control ASEAN and its consensus-based decisions. ASEAN has been deadlocked in its 56-year history in 2012 and 2016 when its declaration included the South China sea. ASEAN was unable to issue a statement due to a veto by Cambodia, a close Chinese ally.
China also seeks to build international platforms and mechanisms for exchange and cooperation to address challenges in areas like counter-terrorism, cyber and information security and biosecurity. China presented a global initiative on data security a few years back which caught a lot of attention.
However, how Beijing-backed hackers have for years been stealing data from a number of countries has not made it to the news. Government and military units in South and Southeast Asia have become a common target for China’s hackers, Inside Over reported citing a cyber security firm called TeamT5.
In addition to cyber-attacks, sensitive data of many countries is also at risk of finding its way to China. With regards to addressing the challenges in areas of counter-terrorism, China practices the placing of technical holds and blocks on the listing of terrorists by the UNSC 1267 Committee.
In June-October 2022, China placed a technical hold on the listing of at least five terrorists, undermining not only the multilateral resolve to fight terrorism but also the legitimacy of a UN body, as per the news report. On the issue of biosecurity, the investigations into the origin of COVID-19 have been held up as China failed to cooperate and provide unrestricted access to the World Health Organization team, as per the Inside Over report.
The paper has said that ‘Humanity is an indivisible security community. Security of one country should not come at the expense of that of other,’ according to the news report. However, recent developments have indicated that the principle of indivisible security means that China’s security cannot be compromised even at the expense of that of other countries.
According to a report in September and December 2022 by human rights organization Safeguard Defenders, China operates a network of more than 100 overseas police stations to monitor, harass and repatriate Chinese citizens and silence protestors against China, as per the Inside Over report. Several nations have started investigations to find out how China managed to make these police stations without their knowledge.
