What Economic Security Means to Xi Jinping
Beijing's Framework for Assessing Trades Offs Between Economic Development and National Security
Summary
Earlier this month Janet Yellen traveled to China in order to meet with decision makers in Beijing. Yellen’s message was summarized succinctly by the Financial Times: “security should not derail US-China economic relations.” This framing assumes a natural distinction between economic strategy and security policy. But is this how the leaders and theorists of the Chinese Communist Party think about the relationship between economics and security?
The Center for Strategic Translation has published several translations that investigate this question–including a new translation published this week. They take as their subject a slogan that was elevated into economic planning documents during the early months of the pandemic: “integrate development and security” [统筹发展和安全]. It is difficult to understand developments in Chinese economic planning or security policy without first understanding the meaning and history of this phrase.
Along with the newest translation, CST has also published two new glossary essays related to Xi Jinping’s economic thought: the New Development Concept [新发展理念]. and the New Development Pattern [新发展格局]. Introduced ahead of China's Thirteenth and Fourteenth Five Year Plans, respectively, these two concepts provide the policy framework for Chinese development planning in the Xi Jinping era.
From Growth to Security
When Xi Jinping became the General Secretary of the CPC, he inherited an economy that the outgoing leadership described as “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable.” For two decades the Party had taken GDP growth as its central task. With China suffering from declining growth, rising debt, noxious pollution, a gaping income gap, and a rampant culture of corruption, the limits of this program were evident to observers across China. Xi Jinping would introduce a new ideological line to address these problems. Core to this ideological system—grandiosely titled “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics''—was a set of overarching concepts intended to steer China’s response to the numerous challenges posed by the negative byproducts of the growth-at-all-costs mindset. The Total National Security Paradigm and the New Development Concept are two of these organizing concepts. The works excerpted below sit squarely at the intersection between the two.
The newest of our translations on this topic (“Uphold the Integration of Development and Security”) is taken from a 2022 study manual published by the Office of the Central National Security Commission and distributed to party committees across China. It was written to educate cadres on the relationship between economic development and economic security; it both traces the connections between the two fields and instructs cadres on how to make these connections stronger. The Study Outline echoes many of the themes introduced in our first translation on this topic (“Integrating Development and Security, Consolidating a Protective Barrier Around the State”), an essay penned by Chen Wenqing [陈文清], when he was serving as China’s top spymaster.
“Uphold the Integrated Planning of Development and Security: On the Necessary Requirements of National Security in the New Era”
If the fifth chapter of the Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Outline has one message, it is that cadres must understand the mutual dependence of security and economic development:
Only with the continuous advance of reform and development can there possibly be a strong foundation for social stability. Leave social stability behind and not only will reform and development no longer smoothly advance, but every gain we have already made will be lost.
The Party “must weave national security into all aspects of the entire work process of the Party and state.” Success will be achieved when economic development and national security policy move in tandem, like “two wings in flight or the two wheels that move a cart.” Cadres must remember that even if development remains “the top priority in the government and for the rejuvenation of the state,” economic growth and rising “material living standards are not everything. They are not the sole determining factor of the people’s support.”
At times integrating development and security simply seems to mean using a security frame to justify long-standing development priorities. The manual gives extended explanations for why tackling income inequality, reducing pollution, and fostering a science-focused industrial policy all increase the security of the Communist Party. But the manual also provides the security rationale behind more recent shifts in Chinese policy. Beginning in 2020 Chinese leaders began speaking of the urgent need for the Chinese economy to transition to a “new development pattern.” Large sections of the chapter describe the new economic structure Beijing hopes to build. “The most essential characteristic of the construction of [this] new development pattern is realizing a high-level of self-sufficiency,” the manual instructs. This is because:
In recent years, economic globalization has encountered headwinds and cyclical international economic structures have undergone profound adjustments. The outbreak of COVID-19 exacerbated those headwinds, and the trend of turning inwards is on the rise in various states. The circulation of international markets and [natural] resources has clearly slowed and the [old] environment [conducive to] importing and exporting on a large scale has already changed. In an external environment characterized by the atrophy of global markets, we must concentrate our strength on properly handling our own affairs; accelerating the construction a new developmental configuration; strengthening our power to survive, compete, develop and [grow] sustainably in the face of various perilous circumstances, both foreseen and unforeseen; and ensure the course towards the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is neither stifled nor crushed.
In this environment science and technology are particularly critical. Staying at the cutting edge of scientific progress is not only a matter of GDP growth, but a “matter of survival.” The Study Outline describes how “a new round of technological revolution has brought ever fiercer competition [in the realm] of science and technology.” Therefore, “if we cannot improve our capacity for innovation in science and technology we will not be able to transition the drivers of our growth. We will [then] be outmatched in global economic competition.” “Scientific and technological self-reliance,” the manual concludes, “will decide our state’s capacity for survival and development.”
Read the full translation of the chapter HERE.
Chen Wenqing: “Integrating Development and Security, Consolidating a Protective Barrier Around the State: A Deep Study in Implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”
The decision to “weave national security into all aspects of the entire work process of the Party and state” is music to the ears of security officials like Chen Wenqing. Currently leading the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, this piece was published when Chen served as head of China’s premier intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security. By that point Chen had spent his entire career bouncing around various parts of the PRC’s security bureaucracies– bureaucracies now elevated to the center of China’s economic planning. Writing for the People’s Daily, Chen is determined to communicate the significance of this decision: .
The Party Center with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed great importance on integrating national security and development. The integration of national security and development is a profound conclusion drawn from the history of the rise and fall of great powers. It is a profound lesson drawn from the experience of promoting socialist modernization for seventy years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China [1949]. It is a profound awareness and understanding of the dialectically unified relationship between development and national security. It is a vital strategic deployment for the Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation in an unstable and uncertain development environment.
For Chen, “integrating development and security” means addressing “security problems in economics, banking, the internet, foodstuffs, energy, ecology, biology, and overseas interests.” Even if “the most important aspects [of security] are still political, territorial, and military security,” these newer “nontraditional” security domains are just as important to China’s return to greatness.
To justify this argument, Chen recalls the rise and fall of both ancient Chinese dynasties and modern communist regimes. The lesson is the same: “if development does not uphold security, then the state will not last long.” On the other hand, “if security cannot guarantee development, then the state cannot sustain itself.” Development and security are the key levers of word history: “Their combination leads to flourishing. Their separation leads to weakness. Their contradiction leads to death.”
Read the full translation of Chen’s article HERE.
New Glossary Entries
Paired with our translations are a series of glossary entries. Each entry is an essay that summarizes the meaning and traces the history of key concepts invoked by the translated authors. Among our newest entries are the New Development Concept [新发展理念], the New Development Pattern [新发展格局], and the Leadership Core [领导核心]. The first two entries trace the history of China’s economic development and national security since Xi Jinping’s ascension to power. The last term–The Leadership Core–provides insight into the non-institutional nature of power at the top of CPC politics.
Visit our glossary to read these entries and more!