In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in 2025.
One is the waves of uncannily synchronized soldiers and a bewildering array of high-tech weaponry gliding down Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue. The ...
Category: Global Security Initiative
China’s Gradual but Growing Security Influence in Africa
China is steadily expanding its security presence in Africa through deeper military ties, weapons sales, and multinational deployments as UN Peacekeepers. In fact, China is now the largest arms supplier to Sub-Saharan Africa, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace ...
China’s Africa Security Strategy: Training, Arms, and Political Influence
Over the past 25 years, China’s military engagement with Africa has grown dramatically. In 2000, fewer than 5% of African weapons came from China. Today, Chinese-made armored vehicles are used by 70% of African militaries, and China has become the continent’s ...
China’s National Security Whitepaper: Old Wine in New and Important Bottles
By Lukas Fiala As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, China’s recently published national security whitepaper rightly deserves our attention at a crucial moment in global politics. Instructive both in terms of timing and implications, the paper cements Beijing’s ...
Police Chief Says China to Train 3,000 More Overseas Cops
By Isabel Kua China will train thousands of law enforcement officers from different countries over the next 12 months, its police chief said Monday, as it seeks to cement its role as a global security provider.
Insecurity in Pakistan: Losses and Gains for China
By Saniya Kulkarni Security in the Central-South Asian region is an issue of increasing importance to China, especially in light of growing uncertainty in Pakistan and an ongoing threat to infrastructure projects in Afghanistan. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K, or ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
China, Russia, and the New Era of “Systemic Competition”
By Lukas Fiala Earlier this week we had the opportunity to host the German Marshall Fund’s Andrew Small for a discussion about his latest book The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future. As the title suggests, Andrew ...
What is Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative? New Government Document Gives Clues
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the Global Security Initiative in 2022, but since then, the initiative has raised more questions than answers. Now, a new concept paper has been put out by the Chinese government, which adds detail on both the GSI's broad principles and some concrete ...
Can Beijing Sell its Global Security Initiative?
By Lukas Fiala On Wednesday, Xi Jinping promised Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif ‘to advance the operationalization of the…Global Security Initiative.’ Announced by Xi only in April this year, the GSI is adding to an alphabet soup of existing policy acronyms such as the ...