Safeguarding National Security While Expanding China's Openness
The year of 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up policy.
In the past 40 years, China's national security environment has undergone deep and complex changes due to the expansion of China's opening up. Its philosophy on achieving national security has been innovatively developed; its ability to safeguard national security has been greatly enhanced and its measures to protect national security have been totally upgraded.
Against the backdrop of China's increasing openness, the scope and meaning of national security have been broadened. The overall international security and development situation remain volatile and complex, with traditional and non-traditional security threats interwoven and interacting with each other. In China, security issues are becoming more integrated, complicated and dynamic, and the government is facing pressures from within and without. Safeguarding the political security and social stability while preserving national sovereignty and interest is of paramount importance. Accordingly, within the ever expanding opening up of China, national security awareness has been greatly enhanced.
In the context of China's growing openness, the philosophy of national security has been developing with the times. Based on domestic and international environments and changes in the national situation and its capacity, China has proposed an array of new national security concepts consonant with the tide of time. The overall national security outlook puts national interests first, giving emphasis to both development and security. It takes people's security as the mission, political security as the fundamental, economic security as the basis, military, cultural, and social security as the safeguard, and international security as the support. The overall security outlook constitutes a vast and meaningful theoretical system of national security thoughts and has become one of the basic strategies adopted by China for a new era.
Within the framework of China's ever expanding openness, the capacity-building of national security has accelerated. China is endeavoring to strengthen its strategic decision-making capacity, collaborative responsiveness and its effective policy implementation. In order to maximize the security benefits, China is committed to improving risk management and utilizing a full spectrum of national security resources to build a grand national security system that integrates political security, homeland security, military security, economic security, cultural security, social security, science and technology security, information security, ecological security, resource security, and nuclear security.
Within the realm of China's new openness, a new global security concept is taking shape. In the context of globalization, no one country by itself can handle the security challenges that humanity faces and neither can any country slide back into isolation to seek security. China truly believes that it cannot develop well without a peaceful and stable international environment. Therefore, President Xi Jinping proposed to build a Community of a Shared Future for Mankind and advocated for a new global security concept featuring “collective, integrative, cooperative, and sustainable” security. China has become the most dynamic and positive actor in global security governance and has shown to the international community through its actions that a better China makes for a better world.
The achievements made in the past 40 years have demonstrated the importance of persevering in reform and opening up to the outside world. By promoting reform and enhancing security through opening up, China has successfully addressed security challenges, one after another, and ensured a dynamic and sustainable national security, which in turn provides a sound, stable environment for further expanding opening up.
The report delivered at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China solemnly declared to the world that, “China adheres to the fundamental national policy of opening up and pursues development with its doors open wide”. In this context, our journal will give sustained, long-term attention to issues on how to safeguard national security when China promotes a new round of higher-level opening up to the outside world.
Translated by Zhang Guoshuai
Edited by Anthony Alonso