In China, regional security officials have been told to make regime stability a priority

In China, regional security officials have been told to make regime stability a priority

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According to official readouts, at least four provincial and municipal committees of the National Security Commission held meetings in May and early June. The readouts were brief and made no mention of specific events or targets.

At a meeting in the southeastern province of Anhui on June 3, party chief Han Jun emphasised Xi’s “holistic approach to national security” and told officials to give priority to “political security” – meaning regime stability.

Prioritising political security and Xi’s “holistic approach” were also the main messages at national security meetings held in May in Shanghai in the east, as well as in Chongqing and Yunnan province, both in the southwest, according to official media reports.

Xi first made mention of the “holistic approach” during a speech at the inaugural meeting of the National Security Commission a decade ago. Xi leads the commission, which was set up under the Central Committee in November 2013 as part of a major overhaul of the party’s institutions to strengthen its control over security.

In his speech, Xi said political security was the foundation of the holistic approach to national security, and he also stressed the need for economic, military, cultural and social security.

Addressing the national body in May last year, Xi told officials to be ready for “worst-case and most extreme scenarios” so that they could withstand “high winds and waves and even perilous storms”. He said China was facing national security issues that were “considerably more complex and much more difficult” to deal with than before.

Party secretaries – who also head the provincial and municipal committees of the National Security Commission – laid out their approaches to improve security at the recent meetings.

Chongqing party chief Yuan Jiajun stressed the need to “guard against and crack down on the infiltration, sabotage, subversion and secession activities of hostile forces, resolutely fight the ideological struggle, and crack down on violent terrorist activities harshly” during a meeting on May 31, according to the official readout.

He told officials to do their “utmost to ensure economic and financial security”, especially to prevent and deal with the hidden debts of local governments and state-owned enterprises.

In Yunnan the previous day, party boss Wang Ning stressed the province’s role in safeguarding China’s southwest, including by cracking down on cross-border crimes such as telecoms scams, illegal immigration and smuggling. Yunnan shares borders with Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos.
At a meeting on May 15, Shanghai’s party chief Chen Jining said the city should build “a solid foundation for economic security and effectively safeguard cultural security”, according to party mouthpiece Jiefang Daily. Chen also called for people’s safety to be maintained, and for there to be “virtuous interaction” between high-quality development and high-level security.

A political scientist at Nanjing University said the security push needs to be balanced with development since the economy is facing more headwinds than it was 10 years ago when Xi first introduced the “holistic” concept.

“Security is certainly very important for the party’s regime stability, but by overdoing it, it seems to be eating into China’s economic growth and affecting employment, people’s lives and government revenue,” said the political scientist, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

“So if they are true believers in the ‘holistic’ security approach they should take another look at how to balance it, because too much emphasis on security is creating other social risks.”

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