What do the Taiwan Strait, Chinese counterespionage laws, foreign textbooks, and polar security have in common? While seemingly unrelated, policies related to all those issues are all guided by one overarching doctrine called the Comprehensive National Security. Read more about how this doctrine makes international issues out of domestic ones and vice versa, and how China might make a security case out of almost anything and justify it using CNS.
Comprehensive National Security (Zongti guojia anquanguan 总体国家安全观), initially a niche concept, would eventually become an influential guiding framework for shaping nearly everything from counterespionage to technological regulation.
As recent events demonstrate, there have been numerous cases of seemingly unrelated events that were, in fact, all guided by the same ideological framework. From recent counterespionage raids that have been happening since the passing of the 2023 Counterespionage Law, through tightened data laws (or Personal Information Protection Laws) passed in 2021, to Xi’s multiple security meetings, including international ones. This shows that the concept of CNS permeates almost everything in the current Chinese ideology and, over time, has become a governing mentality, making the international into the local and vice versa.
This article attempts to explain the sometimes unclear concept, to map the developments, including the recent ones in 2025, that were influenced by one of the latest PRC White Papers, which will show us that the CNS is, in fact, nothing new for the PRC ideology.
Origins and Evolution of CNS and Its Overall Logic
The term, Comprehensive National Security, was first used by Xi Jinping himself at the first convention of the Central National Security Commission of the Chinese Communist Party, a commission that was in the works since January 24th, 2014. [1] On April 15th, 2014, Xi Jinping used this time to discuss the concept of big security, which would later evolve into the concept of Comprehensive National Security as we understand it today. Big security refers mainly to issues that would usually fall under standard governance but are now considered matter of utmost importance for the security of a nation. CNS also has many alternative variant translations – it is sometimes referred to as the Total National Security Paradigm, the Comprehensive National Security Concept, or the Overall National Security Outlook. [2]
The concept deals with numerous issues – a total of 16 different fields, including social security, military security, economic security, and ecological security – and as mentioned above, has a tendency to integrate domestic stability and foreign strategy into a single framework. However, there are no official documents that explain the term, despite its frequent use by Party officials and in policy documents. Some information can be found in party documents released after 2014, like the white paper on China’s Military Strategy from 2015, which specifies the new governmental outlook on national security as „…a uniform and comprehensive planning of internal and external security, territorial security and security of the population, traditional and non-traditional security, our security and common security.“ [3].
While the concept of CNS is relatively new (as it was introduced in 2014 and has been amended a few times since then, most notably in 2025 together with a new White Paper [4]), the underlying ideology behind it isn’t necessarily a fresh one. We can find various traces of it in Chinese history, for example, in the Leninist Party-state organisation of government, [5] where every single domain is under the control of a single party. The CNS just gives more legitimacy to this approach, assuring people that every single instance of state control is done with national security in mind.
Another trace could be the nationalist Tianxia 天下 concept that has been permeating Chinese ideology for centuries, with its attempts to separate, or distance China from the West, [6] an attempt we can notice in some parts of the CNS strategy, which we will refer to later. Stability maintenance, used to legitimise policies that fall under CNS, is also not a new concept at all. Originally called weiwen 维稳, [7] it has guided Chinese policies for decades, starting in the Deng era, and was institutionalised in the 2000s.
All the points above are somehow, in their own way, included in the “new” CNS strategy. Before we get to the more concrete examples, there is a need to examine the underlying logic of CNS and summarise it.
There are three main logical points that can be made regarding the functioning of the CNS. The first one is security as governance. This means that the tasks which would generally fall under simple governance, such as poverty alleviation, education, or tech development, are now considered security tasks. There is also a focus on prevention, with a focus on detecting hidden risks early and reporting them, [8] [9] and the reach of the state is now omnipresent.
The second one is security as regime legitimacy. This means that political security is now above everything else, and issues like dissent, [9] plain inefficiency, or ideological deviations are now viewed as existential threats.
The last point to be made about the logic is the issue of security as sovereignty and development. Certain issues, such as technological dependence or external pressure, are now recognised as potential security bottlenecks. The interesting aspect of the strategy is its tendency to view development as a national security task. [10] This is not new, as China always considered national security to be directly subordinate to its developmental strategy, which was formally stated by the government in 2004. [11] A plethora of things could fall under development strategies, such as energy independence, industrial upgrading, AI, or semiconductors. The strategy, therefore, merges long-term national rejuvenation with more near-term risk management.
Domestic Governance, Repackaged
As there are 16 areas in total targeted by the CNS, with political security being the overarching area that is highlighted as the crucial one, [12] we will only focus on a few in order to showcase the importance of the Doctrine. The domains that were chosen for the purposes of this article are social security and technological security.
Social security is deeply connected to the stability doctrine that, as mentioned above, has permeated Chinese ideology for decades. Many different issues fall under this concept, and Xi himself calls social security (shehui anquan 社会安全) one of the “guarantees” (baozhang 保障), [12] along with other concepts such as military and cultural security, thus highlighting its importance. This insistence on the importance of social security has not changed at all in the 11 years that have passed since the emergence of the initial version, and the wording remained the same in the new 2025 White Paper. [4]
The social security part of the CNS involves various issues, including risk prevention discourse, content moderation, surveillance as a preemptive tool, or plain stability maintenance. However, this, according to PRC’s own words, could potentially mean a wide variety of things – in the 2025 CNS White Paper, [13] the PRC government states an example of them combatting “…terrorism and crack[ing] down on violent crimes in accordance with the law, meeting the public’s earnest expectations for social security and stability, which represents a genuine respect and protection of human rights” [sic!]. In the same document, the authors list many forces that they consider subversive and a risk to national security, such as the Tibetan Independence Movement, which points to the wide and unclear definition of terrorism and threats to social security in China, meaning almost anything and anyone could be targeted under the pretence of national security.
Technological security (keji anquan 科技安全), on the other hand, is not considered by Xi to be one of the key features of the original CNS doctrine from 2014. This does change in the 2025 White Paper, where it is now considered to be a part of the “guarantees”, just as social security was since the start. Technological security involves several key issues, including self-reliance and data localisation, to name a few.
In relation to this type of security, it is worth noting the August 2025 governmental warning that was given to Chinese tech companies, of which many are government-affiliated, sometimes illicitly [14], over potential security risks of buying NVIDIA AI chips. [15] The companies that were informed were some of the major ones, including Tencent and ByteDance. They were also reminded that it is possible to purchase one of the Chinese chips available, hinting at a potential effort by the PRC to separate its technological infrastructure from the Western one to a greater degree than it has been until now. Both examples point out how CNS influences domestic issues, although it is necessary to also mention the issues that have been caused, or could be, by CNS abroad.
CNS, Big in Japan (and Elsewhere)
China has made big strides in internationalising its security policy. Since the 2022 Bo’ao Forum (Bo’ao Yazhou luntan 博鳌亚洲论坛), it has been attempting to push its Global Security Initiative (Quanqiu anquan changyi 全球安全倡议), and this initiative has been consistently mentioned in most of the governmental White Papers concerning the rest of the world that came out since then. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
China’s external behaviour is thus now shaped by the CNS, and this has resulted in many new security-related policies. Among those, to state a few examples, are the securitisation of supply chains (such as the AI chip restrictions), overseas interests becoming security issues (the Belt and Road Initiative, overseas police posts, or anti-piracy campaigns), information and discourse security (discourse power as a security tool), or maritime and territorial issues, which are now framed as a part of rejuvenation and sovereignty, with Taiwan and South China Sea issues now being considered domestic.
From this, we can see that domestic insecurity narratives shape foreign policy actions, and any external shocks, such as the recent U.S. sanctions, the concept of which was so shocking to the PRC government that it decided to publish a White Paper soon after the election of Donald Trump for his second term in 2025, detailing the benefits of the U.S.-China relations, [21] or decoupling, can be reframed as domestic political security threats.
This creates a feedback loop of sorts, which begins with internal insecurity, causing more assertive external behaviour, then more external pressure, all of which results in more internal securitisation. Such unpredictability and assertiveness of behaviour toward the exterior can cause (and has caused) many issues for other countries, especially China’s neighbours of Japan [22] and Taiwan, but also for businesses and organisations seeking to cooperate with or do business in China. The next section will highlight some of the potential issues.
Implications for Foreign Governments, Businesses and Institutions
As already stated, numerous complications could occur if a corporation, foreign government, or institution decides to engage with China after the implementation of CNS-related laws and regulations.
The first of them could be regulatory unpredictability. Virtually any policy domain could suddenly become a security issue for the PRC, thereby complicating any cooperation between China and the rest of the world. An example of this can be seen in the aforementioned foreign-made AI chip review, or another issue of securitisation in education, [23] where numerous collaborations between universities were abruptly halted, some academics were detained, and foreign textbooks and joint-degree programmes were suddenly deemed a threat.
The second of them could be called opaque decision-making. Risks and threats are now defined politically, but not analysed properly, meaning decisions are now made within Party organs and not by regulators. One of the examples is the recent restrictions on gallium, germanium, and graphite, [24] which were justified by very vague claims of national security concerns, but no technical threat analysis has been provided.
The third of them is heightened espionage sensitivity. This could be considered a continuation of the 2017 law that orders everyone to spy for their country in the event of need. This means that the expansion of the scope of counter-espionage law makes foreign entities much more vulnerable to investigations. The law was amended in 2023, and one of the important details was the possibility of extraterritorial application of the law, [25] or the broadening of the definition of counterespionage, which now includes any materials related to national security, while not defining what those materials are.
Lastly, there is now a reduced space for cooperation. This could mean a lower possibility of any education, culture or technological exchanges with China happening. As the author implies, the repercussions of the CNS are uncountable, as the concept is so ambiguous.
Conclusion
The aim of this article is to illustrate that CNS is not only a simple doctrine but also a way of seeing the world. CNS legitimises deeper state intervention and fuses governance with security, resulting in a larger securitisation of the country.
It is a governing mentality that helps the PRC leadership redefine challenges in political and existential terms. By stretching the notion of security across many domains, and not just the traditional ones such as cybersecurity or territorial security, the framework justifies deeper and much earlier state intervention in almost any sphere of activity.
This way, rapid policy shifts, such as the 2023 counterespionage law, expanded legal tools, and assertive pre-emption, appear necessary. For foreign actors, this means a strategic environment with a sense of uncertainty built into the system. Regulatory changes can be abrupt and inexplicable, with motivations often being opaque; these changes are frequently made by lawmakers rather than policy experts. Previously innocent areas of cooperation can thus gain a security overtone.
As China navigates slower growth, increasing geopolitical tension and many societal issues (the “lying flat” movement, low birthrates, high unemployment, etc.), the comprehensive security logic is unlikely to contract. Understanding Beijing’s mentality, therefore, requires people to pay attention to the political mentality of what is considered a risk in addition to the regular policies. Such an expansive mentality will continue shaping China’s internal governance and its engagement with the outside world, including the territorial tensions that are currently a hotly debated topic.
Reviewed by Dávid Dinič and Veronika Zwiefelhofer Čáslavová
Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons
Sources
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