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By Dr. Ayman Eldessouki & Dr. Suha Cubukcuoglu
On May 12, 2025, the Information Office of China’s State Council issued a white paper entitled “China’s National Security in the New Era,” which includes the first national security strategy (NSS) in the country’s recent history. The delicate situation China is experiencing at the international and domestic levels, as described in the White Paper, helps explain this inaugural NSS.
The Chinese NSS adopts a comprehensive approach to national security with the “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, which the paper attributes to President Xi Jinping, who proposed it in April 2014. The paper states that China aims to collaborate with Asia-Pacific countries to advance peace, development, and regional stability. It describes the approach as “the first major strategic thinking established as the guiding principle for national security efforts since the founding of the People’s Republic of China and a significant theoretical contribution to the global community."
However, a holistic approach to security is not new in international security studies, since the UN Development Programme introduced the concept of human security in 1994. From time to time, great powers release their grand strategy white papers and conduct practices of public diplomacy. Although unofficial sources indicate that China may have adopted a five-year national security strategy in 2021 to guide policymaking, its existence has not been officially confirmed through any public document. China’s State Council released its last National Defense white paper in 2019.
The release of this white paper not only institutionalizes Xi Jinping’s “comprehensive national security” doctrine but also marks a turning point in how China communicates its global intentions, considering especially the volatile situation in the Middle East. Unlike earlier fragmented announcements, this document signals a more assertive and structured vision—positioning China as a proactive guardian of global security norms. This move may reflect Beijing’s concern over mounting geopolitical pressure and its desire to reassure both domestic and foreign audiences of its governance resilience.
Comprehensive national security interests span both traditional and nontraditional fields—ranging from military, political, and economic to societal, cultural, technological, biosecurity, and public health. It integrates internal and external dimensions, bridging national and international concerns, while addressing both individual and collective security. A key purpose of the NSS is to provide solid support for the steady progress of Chinese modernization and to ensure high-quality development. It forestalls and defuses various risks in the process of modernization. There is an emphasis on modernizing the Chinese armed forces and the national security system and capabilities in general, particularly in AI, cybersecurity, and space technology. The white paper also underscores technology’s pivotal role in global affairs—indeed, contemporary U.S.–China relations are defined by "techno-geopolitics."
China has firmly established the coordination of development and security as a core governance principle. While high-quality development remains its primary goal, safeguarding high-level national security is upheld as the paramount mission. By integrating the two, China ensures joint planning, holistic deployment, and mutual reinforcement. This approach supports continued openness while maintaining vigilance against external risks.
China’s NSS upholds “true” multilateralism based on common security and a global security-governance system. This is why Chinese strategists often compare their vision with the American approach, which, as they claim, relies on sanctions, decoupling, intimidation, and coercion, as evidenced by its attacks on nuclear facilities in Iran. China’s strategy envisions a global role, relying on the Global Security Initiative presented in April 2022 as a means of expanding its influence.
The white paper strongly prioritizes “political security as the fundamental task,” like other authoritarian states. Political security concerns the organizational stability of states, their governing systems, and the ideologies that give them legitimacy. In China’s case, this means upholding the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) absolute leadership and the socialist system. The document also conflates societal security—which is concerned mainly with a society’s identity and cohesion—with social security, which refers to social welfare programs and protections for individuals and households.
Furthermore, the paper reflects a shift toward greater transparency in China's national security narrative, albeit selectively. The narrative leaves some strategic ambiguity in omitting specific timelines or implementation mechanisms, which allows China to maintain policy flexibility while advancing its global security agenda. The emphasis on “security for all” and the rejection of “bloc confrontation” underlines Beijing’s attempt to present itself as a counterweight to U.S.-led alliances. Yet, this normative framing rooted in the Global Security Initiative—raises critical questions about whose security is being prioritized and how it will be enforced in contested regions like the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific regions.
In line with its newly articulated national security strategy and long-standing principles of non-interference, China’s approach to the Iran-Israel conflict demonstrates a calibrated balance between its adherence to the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of military force, and strategic hedging, its favorite strategy toward the Middle East. While early rhetoric affirmed Iran’s right to self-defense, Beijing has since adopted a more neutral posture—urging de-escalation and promoting dialogue under the Global Security Initiative. This reflects China’s broader commitment to “true multilateralism” and its rejection of bloc politics, as underscored in the white paper. Simultaneously, China continues to deepen its economic engagement with both Iran and Gulf states, as well as Israel, safeguard vital energy routes such as the Strait of Hormuz, and avoid entanglement that could jeopardize its modernization goals. By maintaining strategic hedging, Beijing aims to reinforce its image as a stabilizing global actor while insulating itself from the polarizing dynamics of Middle East conflicts and preserving maneuverability amid intensifying U.S.-China rivalry.
Issuing China’s first formal NSS signals a new phase in which Beijing prepares to pursue a more dynamic foreign policy and a substantive international role across economic, diplomatic, and security domains. What is certain is that this aligns with China’s vision of a multipolar world based on common, comprehensive, and sustainable security.
This article is written by TRENDS Research and Advisory.
Authors: Dr. Suha Cubukcuoglu is the Director of Türkiye Program and a member of the advisory council at TRENDS Research & Advisory in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr. Ayman Eldessouki is a Senior Researcher at TRENDS Research & Advisory in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
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