Strategic Digital China – The Great Cyber Shield

In this article, we shall focus on the Chinese cyber security national system, formally known as the “Golden Shield Project” and frequently dubbed “the Great Firewall” (“The Great Firewall of China: Background”, Torfox, a Stanford Project, June 1, 2011). Previously, we saw how China promotes a mammoth digital development and is becoming, as a result, a “digital nation”, indeed the “Middle Kingdom of the Cyberspace” (Jean-Michel Valantin , The Red Team Analysis Society, June 26, 2017).

While rapidly developing the access of its citizens, companies and public services to the internet – in 2016, 710 million Chinese people were internet users (against a worldwide total of 3.6 billion, i.e 19.72% of the world internet users are Chinese) – and actively supporting the development of the “digital sinosphere”, Beijing also works at securing the country’s cyberspace (Simon Alexander, “The Rise of the Sinosphere and the Digital Silk Road”, DCX. Technology, February 2, 2017).

As China becomes the “Middle Kingdom of Cyberspace”, its political and economic authorities develop and expand a vast cyber security system, “the Golden Shield Project”, also named the “Great Firewall” after the “Great Wall”, which was built to defend China against invaders. The Golden Shield Project is aimed at securing the development of the Chinese society and its economy, while exerting an active surveillance on the contents and ideas circulating within the Chinese part of the Internet.

Here, we shall see how and why this national cyber security system is developed, focusing upon its underlying strategic philosophy, in order to understand its political meaning from a Chinese point of view.

The Golden Shield Project and the Chinese Nation

In order to respond to the challenges of cyber security on a Chinese scale, the Golden Shield Project is dedicated to preventing and blocking multiple kinds of cyber attacks, as well as potential cyber threats, against state organs, companies, infrastructures, and civil and military organizations (“China’s internet: the great firewall: the art of concealment”, The Economist, April 6^th 2013.).

As a “digital nation”, China, the Chinese people, institutions and companies are highly exposed to cyber attacks, as shows the staggering 969% growth of their number between 2014 and 2016 (“Chinese See Almost 1000 Percent Increase in Cyber Attacks”, Reuters, Nov 29, 2016). This impressive number means that, for example, during the first semester 2016, 37% of the Chinese Internet users have suffered economic loss because of diverse kinds of Internet attacks and fraud. In 2016, the total financial loss resulting from these cyber attacks reached 91.5 billion Renminbi, i.e. almost 13 billion USD (“Cyber security in China”, KPMG China, August 2016).

This proliferation of cyber attacks may be linked to the higher degree of connectivity between people as well as between electronic devices known by the Chinese society. Connectivity between electronic devices creates the famous “internet of things” through an exponential number of interactions, and thus potential vulnerabilities, which attract attacks. Hence, in 2016, the National People’s Committee issued the second review of the Cyber Security Law: cyber security became a national security issue in order to provide higher cyber security requirements for public services, companies and internet providers (KPMG, ibid).

This securization is known as the “Golden Shield Project”, a.k.a the “Great Fire Wall”, which political and strategic meaning largely includes and transcends the issue of “state censorship”, even if the latter is also a very important issue (Sherisse Pam, “China fortifies great firewall with crackdown on VPNs”, CNN Tech, January 24, 2017).

Numerous commentators focus their attention quasi exclusively on the way this system is a means to censor the spread of democratic ideas in China and to orient the national political debate in favour of government positions (“The Great Firewall of China”, Open Democracy, 15 March 2013). However, it should also definitely not be forgotten that the digital development of China also entails a need for cyber security, as for any country and society. Securing the digital dimension of China thus appears of the utmost importance in order to protect the economic development of China, and the enrichment of its people, which are at the core of the current form of social contract between the Chinese political authorities and the Chinese society (Loretta Napoleoni, Maonomics, Why Chinese Communists Make Better Capitalists Than We Do?, 2011).

The “Golden Shield Project” is a national cyber security system of unparalleled scope and depth (Open Democracy, ibid). It blocks or authorizes, partly or fully, the access to and of contents and IP addresses, which are deemed threatening for China by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Industry, the China Banking Regulation Commission, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Payment and Clearing Association of China. These different administrations are coordinating the different “segments” of the “Great Firewall”, which includes them all into a national system of cyber security systems (KPMG, ibid).

The philosophy of the Golden Shield Project is rooted in Chinese strategic thinking and political history, dominated by the definition of China needing to protect itself from the outside, especially from Central Asian invaders, while being able to build the relations and trade it needs to develop itself. This philosophy has first inspired the building of the Great Wall, which was meant to protect China from outside threats. The Golden Shield Project a.k.a Great Firewall is meant to ensure the protection of the “cybernation” that China is currently becoming from cyber aggressors. As a matter of fact, as a digital nation, China needs a form of protection, for its citizens, economy, infrastructures, companies, and its political project. Thus, the political authorities try to protect the Chinese nation not “simply” from external influences, but also from external disruptions, knowing that the effects of such occurrences can have extremely violent consequences in China, as the “Middle Kingdom” repeatedly experienced throughout its very long history.

We shall recall, for example, the repeated and sometimes devastating invasions, especially from the nomadic tribes of Central Asia, such as the 12th and 13th centuries Mongol invasions, including those led by Genghis Khan. More recently, since the middle of the 19th century, the political, military, economic and ideological threats and causes of chaos, invasion, war, civil war, and revolution, came in great parts from the outside world (John King Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800-1985, 1987).

From the Great Wall to the Great Cyber Shield

In this regard, the name “Golden Shield” given to the Chinese national cyber security service is not a superlative metaphor, but is, in fact, an extension of the concept of defence and protection from an attack against the national territory. In this regard, it may be seen, indeed, even though the name would have been originally coined in a 1997 Wired article, as an extension of the Great Wall and of its political and strategic philosophy in the cyber space.

The Great Wall has been a long work in progress, which started during the Warring States period, i.e. from the 5th to the 2nd century BC. Then, the different warring Chinese states started to build fortifications alongside their frontiers, in order to protect themselves from each other, and from the nomadic peoples of the central steppes. After the unification of the country by the Qin ruler, the First Emperor, these multiple fortifications were integrated into a series of great fortifications built to keep the nomads out of China (Jacques Gernet, Le Monde Chinois, 2005).

Through the same process, this system of fortifications, while being used to watch upon the outside of China, was also extended to parts of the Central Asian steppe. This was done in order to protect the network of roads going from China to Europe, the Silk Roads (Gernet, Ibid). This network was used by merchants and armies from the 1st century BC to the 16th century and was the main support of exchange between Europe, China and India for centuries (Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads, a new history of the world, 2015). It was so important to the Chinese political authorities that, during centuries, they deployed a strategic system using the Great Wall to protect both China and its “useful exterior”.

The strategic and philosophical meaning of the Golden Shield Project

This means, that, at a deeper level, the idea underlying the Great Wall influences the thought behind the Golden Shield Project. The Golden Shield can be seen as a new version of the Great Wall, adapted to the 21st century. It is created through the constitution of the material and cyber “envelope” necessary for both the protection and development of China. This novel surrounding fortification is meant to isolate China from the outside, while also allowing for interactions with its abroad in the safest possible way, exactly as the Great Wall both not only protected from invasion but also facilitated safe exchanges through the Silk Roads.

The Golden Shield Project is thus somehow the continuity of the multi-millennial construction of the Great Wall, and both are a manifestation of the defence and security mission of the Chinese state. Thus, thanks to this national cyber protection system, added to the New Silk Road, China install itself “in the middle of the world”, not only from a geographical perspective, but also from a cyber space’s point of view, while maintaining its singularity.

In other words, protecting China also means developing it, while centring China in the heart of the global world of the 21st century, especially through the “New Silk Road / One Belt One Road” grand strategy (Jean-Michel Valantin, “ “The “One Belt, One Road” Summit and the Chinese Shaping of the Globalization?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, June 5, 2017).

About the author: Jean-Michel Valantin (PhD Paris) leads the Environment and Geopolitics Department of The Red (Team) Analysis Society. He is specialised in strategic studies and defence sociology with a focus on environmental geostrategy.

Featured image: The Great Wall of China by Mary Wenstrom, Pixabay, CC0, Public Domain

Evaluating Likelihoods for the Future of Libya – A Salafist Victory?

In this article, we shall assess the likelihood of a total victory in Libya in the medium term by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. By victory, we mean a complete victory by one side over its adversaries, which is not imposed from the top down by external powers. In the previous article, we evaluated the likelihood for the lasting victory of each government, finding that a COR victory was least unlikely. Now that intervention is already occurring, as we saw in our article on intervention scenarios, the “Salafist Victory” scenarios are considered sub-scenarios of Scenario 2: Intervention instead of independent scenarios. As such, this will be reflected in the indicators, mapping and likelihoods. Indeed, as events unfolded and intervention took …

Continue reading “Evaluating Likelihoods for the Future of Libya – A Salafist Victory?”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

Towards Renewed War in Syria? The Kurds and Turkey

President Erdogan “Countries We Consider Our Friends See No Problem in Cooperating with Terrorist Organizations”, Eid al-Fitr celebration, AK Party’s Istanbul branch, 25 June 2017 – Presidency of the Republic of Turkey.“The entire world should know that we will never allow the establishment of a terror state across our borders in northern Syria. … We will continue to crush the head of the serpents in their nests. Here is my message to those who want to block the steps we will take for the survival of our state and nation…” President Erdogan (Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, “Countries We Consider Our Friends See No Problem in Cooperating with Terrorist Organizations“, Eid al-Fitr celebration, AK Party’s Istanbul branch , 25 June …

Continue reading “Towards Renewed War in Syria? The Kurds and Turkey”

Digital China – The (Middle) Kingdom of Cyberspace?

The Chinese presence in cyberspace is gathering speed, scope and mass. This was especially obvious during the “One Belt, One Road” Forum for International Cooperation that took place in Beijing on 14 15 May 2017. There, the Chinese government and companies and their counterparts from more than 69 Asian, African, American and European countries signed a myriad of deals, contracts and memorandum of understanding (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The “One Belt, One Road” Summit and the Chinese Shaping of the Globalization?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, June 5, 2017). A large part of these deals are related to the expansion of the Chinese New Silk Road in cyberspace, which thus becomes a medium and a support of the multi-areas Chinese grand strategy,.

For example, China’s telecom companies are committing their “full support” to “Digital Kazakhstan 2020”. In the same dynamic of technological and cyber development, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China initiated the “Joint Initiative to Establish the International Coalition for Green Development on the Belt and Road” with the United Nations Environment Program, as well as the Belt and Road Environmental Cooperation plan, while setting up “the Big Data Service Platform on Ecological and Environmental Protection” (“List of Deliverables of Belt and Road Forum”, Xinhua.net, 2017-05-15). These measures are part of a larger set of initiatives, such as the negotiations between China, Russia and Japan to install a maritime fibre optic cable along the Siberian Northern Sea Route that links the Bering Strait and Asia to Europe through the newly opened corridor that follows the Siberian coast (Marex “Norway and China Friends Again“, The Maritime Executive, 2016-12-19).

These different examples are just samples of the mammoth and expanding cyber dimension of China. The corresponding “re-shaping” takes place through the installation of the Chinese economy “in the middle” of an international network of exchanges of products and resources. The cyber dimension is aimed at reinforcing the centrality of China in the cyberspace as well as the interconnection between the member states of the “One Belt One Road” initiative and China. In other terms, China becomes the Middle Kingdom of the cyberspace.

In the first article of this series on the strategic consequences of the Chinese cyber development, we shall look at the way the actualization of the “digital sino-sphere” is in itself a transformation of the political status of China. We shall notably ponder if China is using the Internet to develop itself, or if China is building its own national sphere in the cyberspace? In other terms, could the digitalization of China be an extension of the Chinese nation in the cyberspace, and could the cyberspace be the support of a new evolution of the Chinese nation?

The digitalization of the Middle Kingdom

Tencent Headquarters – 2011 Design Competition Proposal by Wong Tung & Partners by By RonaldFNg (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Within a few years time, China has become a “digital nation”. In 2016, the world number of internet users reached 3.6 billion, out of which more than 710 million were Chinese (against 590 million internet users for China in 2013). That number includes 656 million mobile users, out of which 250 million are already using 5G network (Simon Alexander, “The Rise of the Sinosphere and the Digital Silk Road”, DCX. Technology, February 2, 2017). In other terms, one Internet user out of five is a Chinese citizen. Observers of the growth of the Chinese Internet market estimate that this number is going to almost double during the coming decade (“Timeline: China’s Internet development”, ChinaDaily.com, 2016-11-15). Their evaluation can be supported, for example, by the success of WeChat, the Chinese social network created by Tencent. Launched in 2011, WeChat reached 253 millions users in August 2013 (Theo Merz, “WeChat passes 100 millions users outside China”, The Telegraph, 15 August 2013) and, in 2017, attracted more than 889 millions users per month (“2017 WeChat Users Behavior Report”, China Channel, April 25, 2017).

A headquarter twin tower of Tencent in Nanshan under construction By Wishva de Silva (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons — Tencent Seafront Tower, Nanshan District at the junction of Binhai Road and Baishi Road, Shenzhen, 9 April 2016, By Wishva de Silva (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons

This Chinese social network can be used to chat, to exchange contents and to pay for products and services through mobile phone, with an extension on the World-Wide-Web. It also has more than 100 millions users in Asia. If this exponential rate of growth keeps on, the 1.4 billion strong population of China will be a collective user of WeChat in 3 or 4 years. Furthermore, in 2017, the WeChat company started to work on a search function that will assure an even more important presence of its hundreds of millions of users in the cyberspace. The overwhelming success of WeChat must be considered as inter-connected with the massive effort initiated by the Chinese government in order to develop the access by 80% the Chinese population to the Internet through fibre optic cables, in order to guarantee a growing broadband access to the population (“China eyes fibre optic use to expand communications systems”, Global Times, 2017/2/6).

This Internet development is deeply linked to the success of Chinese giant Internet companies, such as WeChat as we just saw, or Alibaba, the Chinese leviathan of online retail, as a positive feedback loop between Chinese customers, the Internet, the websites of the companies, the transport and distribution services as well as the massive proliferation of computers and mobile phones in the population is created. As a result, Alibaba saw the number of its active buyers rise from 133 million during the first quarter of 2012 to 454 million during the first quarter of 2017 (“Number of active buyers across Alibaba’s online shopping properties from 2nd quarter 2012 to 1st quarter 2017 (in millions)“, Statista, The Statistical Portal, 2017). The dimension of Alibaba may be better apprehended when compared to the 300 million users of Amazon.com, the online U.S. giant retail company, in the first quarter of 2017 (“120 Amazing Amazon Statistics and Facts (February 2017)”, DMR, 15 March 2017).

These are (strong) signals indicating the importance that must be given to the understanding of the Chinese Internet development strategy in considering notably the very Chinese meaning of this development, while linking it with the enormous challenges and opportunities related to the cyber development of China, as we shall now see.

From water history to digital development

Through giant companies such as Huawei, or Chinese Telecom, among others, and public organisations such as different ministries, China appears to be handling cyberspace as it handled other vital flows, such as water flows, during its long history.

Indeed, traditionally, the Chinese world vision diverges radically from the occidental one. In China, the basic principles, Yin and Yang, which are both antagonistic and complementary are spanning the whole universe, space included and their flow is in constant dynamic. Out of these principles flows the totality of the universe, i.e. the Sky, Earth, nature and humankind and their opposition make them transform into one another and thus permanently flowing. The opposition between these dynamic principles must carefully be “managed”, in order to maintain equilibrium in the human and natural world (Marcel Granet, La Pensée Chinoise, 1934). This dynamic and complementary opposition is also structuring the Taoist world vision, in which the Qi, the “matter energy” and the “Li” the principle of universal order, are different, entwined and must be nurtured and kept in harmony (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine Moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la Globalisation, 2014).

In other terms, the Chinese “Weltanschauung” is centred around an understanding of the world as being a system of flows and these flows must be developed in order to develop the human society, which is not basically different from the rest of the universe, because it is moved by the same principles.

In very practical terms, this has led the Chinese to an understanding of their territory as being literally made of flows, like water that needs to be both used and respected, i.e. canalized in the most harmonious possible way.

The infrastructural and political mastery of water flows has indeed been a crucial and permanent feature of the multi-millennial Chinese history, as well as of its world vision (Philip Ball, The Water Kingdom, 2016). Furthermore water is also, from the Chinese point of view, part of the different dynamic elements that must be maintained into a state of evolving equilibrium. Water flows are of a vital importance for the development of agriculture, of rural and urban communities, and for transportation (Marcel Granet, La Pensée Chinoise, 1934).

The mastery of giant rivers such as the Yellow River, are a way of unifying and integrating the Middle Kingdom into one entity, despite its numerous regional, social and cultural disparities. In the same time, mastering the flow of water, from the very local to the national and international levels, is an absolute necessity because the flow of water can also become a dire threat, through excesses: not enough means drought, while too much means flood. In both cases, water catastrophes mean social, economic and human crisis and as such political crisis for a government that cannot protect its own people and that seems to be losing the “celestial mandate” (John King Fairbanks, Merle Goldman, China, a New History, 2006). This dynamic is even more important with the rapid urban and industrial development started at the end of the 1970s as exemplified by the construction of the infamous Tree Gorges dam, the largest hydropower project in the world (Brian Handwerk, “China’s Three Gorges Dam, by the numbers”, The National Geographic, June 9, 2006).

A good mastery of the flows of water and of the other flows shows that a carefully managed equilibrium between the natural world and the human world is cultivated, thanks to properly managed social, economic, and political activities, guided by the theosophical practices of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la globalisation, 2014).

The notion of mastering water also refers to the notion of mastering the different kinds of flows and their interactions upon which depend the life of the Middle Kingdom. That is why the development of the mastery of water plays a central role throughout the history of China, with systems of irrigation, dams, sluice, canals. The different forms of the water mastery has been paramount for the success of agriculture, which is the foundation for population growth as well as for domestic trade, through the economic development of rural communities, as trade between communities and between provinces, are made easier by the use of waterways. Mastering water flows has thus an essential political function because it allows the biological, social and economic life of the Kingdom as well as its cohesion.

This permanent quest for equilibrium and harmony is the very basis for the legitimacy of the Chinese political authorities, and has been qualified for a long time as the “Celestial Mandate”. This culture of material, social, and spiritual collective search for equilibrium turned China into a sustainable and largely self-sufficient and self-sustainable nation for thousands of years, despite important sequences of political turmoil, violence and war (John King Fairbanks, Merle Goldman, China, a New History, 2006).

This very careful control of water has given to the Chinese authorities, as well as to the population, an experience and a world vision in which the notion of flow, mastery of these flows and politics are going hand in hand. Because the cyber dimension has become a crucial part of the reality of the 21^st century and, as a result, is of vital importance for people’s life and for the life of the whole Chinese nation, thus, from a Chinese political and social point of view, the mammoth development of the national cyberspace infrastructure is a necessity of the same importance and order as the mastery of the water flow.

Mastering the cyber flow

The necessity to master the cyber domain, which is understood, as explained more in terms of flows than in static terms of space, drives the creation of the infrastructures aimed at mastering this new ethereal and vital flow, upon which the social and economic life of life of numerous countries and of the great powers increasingly depend upon. As a result, the Chinese government, the Ministry of Security, the Chinese Internet companies and the Chinese telecom companies, combined with the millions of kilometres of fibre optic cables are forming a cyber nexus (“China’s Digital Transformation: The Internet Impact on Productivity and Growth“, Mc Kinsey Global Institute, 2014).

Meanwhile, the mammoth population of Internet users settles on the Internet, while using the Chinese language in order to exchange, thus creating de facto a singular community, which is also defined by its common world vision, representations and needs. Moreover, as seen, the logistical, electronic and software infrastructures of the Chinese presence in cyberspace is the result of a Chinese combined effort of the national political authorities and national companies. Thus, the combination of this state’s sponsored national endeavour with the mass created by the hundreds of millions of Chinese and the common national identity of the users turns the cyber presence of China into a literal “cyber nation” (Hoo Tian Boon, “Xi’s speech illustrates China a Responsible Cyber Nation”, China Daily.com, 2015-12-17).

The Chinese cyber nexus and its cyber nation has an importance and a meaning that transcends the notion of network of networks, which has historically defined the Internet (Richard T. Griffiths, The History of the Internet, Internet for Historians (and just about everyone else), University of Leiden, 11 October 2002). It results, in fact, into the settlement of the Chinese nation in the cyberspace. In other terms, the Middle Kingdom installs its digital dimension “in the middle” of the cyberspace.

It is from this political perspective that we are now going to have to understand the Chinese strategy of cyber security known as the “Great Firewall” as well as the consequences of this digital development on the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, also known as the “New Silk Road” Chinese grand strategy, currently deployed worldwide.

Featured image: Matrix by Tobias_ ET via Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain

Evaluating Likelihoods for the Future of Libya – Scenarios of Victories (2)

In this article, we shall assess the likelihood of a lasting victory by the GNC, GNA, and COR—in other words, the ability of each government to not only achieve victory, but also to maintain lasting control. By victory, we mean a complete victory by one side over its adversaries, which is not imposed from the top down by external powers. In the previous article, we evaluated the likelihood for the initial victory of each government, finding that a COR victory was least unlikely. Now that intervention is already occurring, as we saw in our article on intervention scenarios, the “Total Victory” scenarios are considered sub-scenarios of Scenario 2: Intervention instead of independent scenarios. As such, this will be reflected in …

Continue reading “Evaluating Likelihoods for the Future of Libya – Scenarios of Victories (2)”

The Middle East Powder Keg and the Great Battle for Raqqa

As events accelerate both within Syria on the battlefield and in the region, this article monitors and analyse these developments. It seeks to answer the question: do the unfolding states of affairs increase, or on the contrary decrease, the likelihood to see an intensification of Turkish escalation against the Syrian Kurds and, de facto, Northern Syria?We shall look first at the race that is taking place on the Syrian battlefield around the Battle of Raqqa and towards Deir es-Zor, there addressing furthermore the entrance of a new level of Iranian influence. We shall then turn to the evolving crisis around Qatar, pointing out notably impacts on Turkey and how that crisis and the Battle of Raqqa feed into each other to heighten the risk to see …

Continue reading “The Middle East Powder Keg and the Great Battle for Raqqa”

The “One Belt One Road” Summit and the Chinese Shaping of Globalisation?

On 14 and 15 May 2017, the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) Forum for International Cooperation took place in Beijing. It hosted delegations from 63 countries and several international organisations. Heads of states and governments led in person 29 delegations from Asia, Africa, South America and Europe (“Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation”, Xinhua.net). The forum was intended as an occasion to bolster the Chinese initiative, through panels, workshops, high level roundtables, and meetings about continental infrastructures, energy and resources, financial cooperation mechanisms and sustainable development.

It must be noted that the UN General Secretary, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the UNESCO, Interpol, the World Health Organisation, and the Wold Bank were all represented by their general directors and secretaries, while heads of states of international stature such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, or of large regional importance such as Turkish President Recep Tayep Erdogan were also present (“One Belt, One Road Forum for International Cooperation” Wikipedia). In other words, the “OBOR Summit” was an impressive display of the worldwide Chinese influence.

The “One Belt, One Road” initiative is also known as the “New Silk Road” (NSR). This grand strategy, launched in 2013, aims at creating a land and maritime international transport, trade and finance Chinese infrastructure, which spans Asia, Russia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Its aim is to find international reserves of the resources and products necessary to the development and enrichment of China (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road – From oil wells to the moon … and beyond”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, July 6 2015). This endeavour is deployed on such a scale that it becomes a new political, economic and strategic force in the globalized world, for the Chinese national interest.

In this article, we shall analyse how the OBOR Forum reveals the way China is shaping globalization, in a very singular way, based on a “low key” approach. This line of action creates influence through the construction of an international consensus about China’s needs, rather than seeing needs prompting the use of raw force.

The Summit: What is at stake?

The vast majority of the attendants were there to sign deals with China, in a wide array of fields, from transport, as for Poland and Russia, to higher education as for Serbia, Hungary and Mongolia, or oil, to name only a few. The forum was also used by International Organisations to promote their agendas. For example, the UN Secretary-General wished to see OBOR supporting the implementation of strategies to reach the sustainable goals that have become the UN roadmap, while other organisations and countries were signing energy and transport deals (“Antonio Gutteres (UN Secretary-General) remarks at the opening of the Belt and Road Forum (Beijing, China, 14 May 2017)” UN Web TV).

As a result, the Chinese government signed an impressive list of deals and memoranda of agreements about “(Synergizing) Connectivity of Development Policies and Strategies, deepening Project Cooperation for Infrastructure Connectivity, (expanding) Industrial Investment, Enhancing Trade Connectivity, (enhancing) Financial Cooperation, (Promoting) Financial Connectivity, investing more in People’s Livelihood, (Deepening) People-to-People Exchange” (“List of Deliverables of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation”, China Daily, 2017-05-16).

A particularly striking feature of the OBOR Forum is that it revives and modifies the meaning of the “Middle Kingdom”. The Chinese name for China, Zhong Guo (中国) – translated as “Middle” for Zhong and “Kingdom”, “Country” for Guo – has evolved throughout the millennia of Chinese history. Originally, it meant the place where the Emperor lived among its vassals, then it signified the central state of Xin, among other Chinese states. After the unification of the Empire, the “Middle Kingdom” became the Kingdom at the centre of other kingdoms. The centrality thus entailed also means that China is at a place that must be occupied to see guaranteed a kind of political and harmonious, equilibrium, meaning dynamic stability (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la globalisation, 2014).

Through this historical perspective on the political and geopolitical meaning of what it means for China to be the “”Middle” Kingdom”, it is interesting to note that the OBOR initiative locates China “in the middle” of a system of networks interwoven with the different national interests of the countries part of the Belt and Road, and with the international interests of the international organisation that have attended the summit. What is thus the strategic philosophy underlaying OBOR.

What is the strategic philosophy of OBOR?

The OBOR Forum gathered more than a third of all countries on Earth, thus demonstrating how China installs itself as a centre of attraction at the world level. In other words, the OBOR Forum reveals the success of the Chinese strategy, at a geoeconomic and political level. It has, furthermore, a deeply Chinese meaning, as also underlined above. It reveals the mammoth political clout accumulated by China, which becomes a de facto “attractor” for the countries and international organisations that have signed deals with Beijing during the Forum (Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World, 2012).

The NSR initiative is a strategy aimed at ensuring the constant flow of energy resources, commodities and products, which are necessary to the current industrial and capitalist development of the 1,4 billion strong “Middle Kingdom” (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road – From oil wells to the moon … and beyond”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, July 6 2015). Since 2013, China has been deploying the NSR initiative, which attracts the interest and commitment of numerous Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries. This international rush to Beijing for access to the Chinese market is further reinforcing the attraction of the New Silk Road, the latter also increasing in turn the appeal of the Chinese market. As a result, the New Silk Road becomes a self-reinforcing process at global scale.

As we detailed previously, the New Silk Road is a new expression of the Chinese philosophical and strategic thought (Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road: the Pakistani strategy”, The Red Team Analysis, May 18, 2015). It is grounded in an understanding of the spatial dimension of China, in the geographical sense, as well as in a comprehension of the different countries that are involved in the deployment of the NSR. Space is conceived as a support to spread Chinese influence and power to the “outside”, but also to allow the Middle Kingdom to “aspirate” what it needs from the “outside” to the “inside” (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la globalisation, 2014). This is why we qualify some spaces as being “useful” to the deployment of the OBOR, and why each “useful space” is related, and “useful”, to other “useful spaces”.

Through this perspective, we understand that the Beijing summit has been a gathering of the delegates from the different “useful spaces” and thus a way to deepen the interconnections between them and the globalised “Middle Kingdom” that China is currently becoming.

Shaping globalisation through the Chinese power of need

There is another layer of geopolitical meaning that is attached to the New Silk Road Forum.

During his introductory speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that, to be successful, the NSR initiative must be based on political cooperation, transport infrastructures’ connectivity, innovation and trade. As far as trade is concerned, President Xi further added that the NSR demands to “open [a] platform of cooperation and uphold and grow an open world economy” and to “uphold the multilateral trading regime, advance the building of free trade areas and promote liberalisation and facilitation of trade and investment » (President Xi Jinping “The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation”, China.org.cn, May 14, 2017).

It is interesting to note that this declaration is a Chinese appropriation of the way the globalisation process has been defined by the U.S. government during the 1990s, while Washington was promoting a worldwide free trade and globalisation, in order to develop a U.S. strategy based on the “shaping of the world”, meaning a shaping of international norms as well as trade and financial flows organised for the economic success of the United States (William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union, January 19, 1999, The American Presidency Project). As the U.S., China promotes free trade outside its frontiers, while remaining cautious and keeping on being carefully protectionist as far as its own economy is concerned (Douglas Bulloch, “Protectionism May Be Rising Around The World, But In China It Never Went Away“, Forbes, October 12, 2016).

Thus, the OBOR Forum reveals how China’s grand strategy establishes the globalisation process itself as a “useful space”, because the international liberalisation of space is an important asset for the Chinese economy. However, if liberalisation is “useful” to open economic spaces to the Chinese exports, it is also useful to multiply imports deals and thus “channel” to China those resources and products that are useful to the Middle Kingdom. In other words, China installs itself “in the middle” of globalisation. If the U.S. started the globalisation process of “shaping the world”, it appears that China is currently shaping globalisation.

This will most certainly have important consequences in terms of the international distribution of power.

Featured image: Roundtable meeting of leaders at Belt and Road international forum, May 15, 2017 Beijing by Russian Presidential Press and Information Office, Kremlin. CC.0.4.

Evaluating Likelihoods for the Future of Libya – Scenarios of Victories (1)

In this article, we shall assess the likelihood of a total victory by the GNC, GNA, and COR. By total victory, we mean a complete victory by one side over its adversaries, which is not imposed from the top down by external powers. In the previous article, we evaluated the likelihood for various spillover scenarios occurring both in the event of partition and without partition. Now that intervention is already occurring, as we saw in our article on intervention scenarios, the “Total Victory” scenarios are considered sub-scenarios of Scenario 2: Intervention instead of independent scenarios. As such, this will be reflected in the indicators, mapping and likelihoods. Indeed, as events unfolded and intervention took place scenarios 3, which were about …

Continue reading “Evaluating Likelihoods for the Future of Libya – Scenarios of Victories (1)”

The Kurds in Syria – State-Building, New Model and War

Female Kurdish fighters and the battle of Raqqa

This article focuses on state-building in Syria’s Kurdish area, i.e. the Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria, also locally called Rojava, and potential impacts. Indeed, we saw previously that the Kurds’ capacity to build a viable polity in Northern Syria was one crucial element for evaluating not only the outcome of the battle of Raqqa against the Islamic State, but also the way Turkey could become further and more intensely embroiled in the conflict (see Helene Lavoix, “The Battle of Raqqa, the Kurds and Turkey“, The Red Team Analysis Society, 2 May 2017).Extreme cases scenarios☔ Scenario War with Turkey escalates⛵ Directly Impacted Actors: All Eurasian + Middle East states, U.S. (military, diplo); NGOs (for Syria/Iraq/Turkey); Businesses in Turkey, Trade & exchanges with Turkey; Airlines; Maritime activities; Religious institutions…⛅ Scenario Kurdish model contributes to peace …

Continue reading “The Kurds in Syria – State-Building, New Model and War”

Saudi Arabia and the Chinese New Silk Road

During March 2017, King Salman of Saudi Arabia ended a six weeks tour in Asia with a state visit in China and a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This visit included the opportunity to start the negotiations about the integration of Saudi Arabia to the Chinese New Silk Road Grand strategy (Michael Tanchum, “Saudi Arabia the next stop on China’s maritime silk road”, East Asia Forum, 22 March 2017).

This move corresponds to a convergence of the Chinese grand strategy with the “Saudi Vision 2030”, and seems to be the start of a “Saudi-Asian pivot”, which has important geopolitical consequences. This is a massive international power shift, because it supports the meeting of Saudi and Chinese strategic interests.

In effect, the Arab mammoth oil producer looks for ways to diversity its economy and its alliances, while China looks for ways to satisfy its huge energy needs (Michael Klare, The Race for What’s Left, 2012). To this end, China extends the New Silk Road (NSR) to new countries, already succeeding with other Gulf countries, such as the UAE and Kuwait.

The specificities of the Chinese NSR and of the novel grand strategy devised by Saudi Arabia create and deepen the existence of converging strategies for the two countries, as we shall explore here. As we previously did for the UAE (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The UAE and the Chinese New Silk Road”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, April 24, 2017), we are going to focus first on the reason why and the way the Chinese New Silk Road and the Saudi grand strategy converge, as well as on the geopolitical meaning of this convergence. We shall also look at the way that confluence supports the emergence of a new kind a sustainable security for both countries.

The Sino-Saudi convergence of strategies

The Sino-Saudi relations are established since 1990. China opened a representation in the Saudi Kingdom while the Cold War was ending (Wang Jin, “China and Saudi Arabia: a new alliance?”, The Diplomat, September 02, 2016). From the 1990s onwards, crude oil exports from the Kingdom to China has been instrumental in the relationship between the two countries. Things are, however, now changing, especially in regard to the Chinese New Silk Road.

This evolution is made obvious with the enormous 65 billion dollars Sino-Saudi investments and trade package signed during the meeting in Beijing between King Salman and President Xi Jinping (Salman Al Dossary, “King Salman in China: the New Silk Road”, Asharq Al Aswat, March 2, 2017). This package includes a memorandum of understanding between Saudi national oil corporation Aramco and China North Industries Group Corporation, in order to build two refineries, one in the Chinese Fujian province, and one in Yanbu in Saudi Arabia. These refineries will further improve the petrochemical capacity of this Saudi port-city located off the Red Sea coast (Michael Tanchum, “Saudi Arabia the next stop on China’s maritime silk road”, East Asia Forum, 22 March 2017).

This move is quite important for Saudi Arabia. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is the first oil supplier for China – almost 67% of China’s oil import has its origin in the Saudi Kingdom, while China is the main destination country for all Saudi exports ( Daniel Workman, “Crude oil imports by countries”, WTEx, March 14, 2017), and the Kingdom intends to secure its share of the Chinese oil market. In this regard, Saudi Arabia competes with Iran and Russia, which are also answering the growing oil needs of China (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Russian Arctic meets the Chinese New Silk Road”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, 31 October, 2016 and “Iran, China and the New Silk road”,The Red (Team) Analysis Society, January 4, 2016). It must be noted that those very countries have already developed deep ties with China.

The construction of Sino-Saudi refineries in China and in Saudi Arabia is in itself a strategic evolution, because, for China, the increase in petrochemical capabilities is absolutely necessary to answer its needs not only in crude oil, but also in oil products, for combustion engines and for the chemical industry (Manan Goel, “Vast majority of 7.1m bpd of new distillation capacity to come from Middle East, China and wider Asia-Pacific », Khaleeji Time, May 7, 2016).

Moreover, the Chinese political authorities are committed to a national energy transition, in order to alleviate the importance of coal in the Chinese energy mix. Indeed, coal ash severely pollutes not only the air, but also the water, and endangers agriculture and collective health, thus becoming for China a national health and political issue (Joseph Ayoub, “China Produces and Consumes almost as much coal as the Rest of the World Combined”, Today in Energy, US Energy Information Administration, May 14, 2014 and Jonathan Kaiman, “China’s toxic air pollution resembles nuclear winter, say scientists“, The Guardian, 25 February 2014).

From the Chinese point of view, integrating Saudi Arabia to the New Silk Road initiative is a major geopolitical step. The New Silk Road, also known as “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR), is a strategy aimed at ensuring the constant flow of energy resources, commodities and products that are necessary to the current industrial and capitalist development of the 1,4 billion strong “Middle Kingdom” (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road – From oil wells to the moon … and beyond”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, July 6 2015). Since 2013, China has been deploying the NSR initiative, which attracts the interest and commitment of numerous Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries.

As we detailed previously, the New Silk Road is a new expression of the Chinese philosophical and strategic thought (Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road: the Pakistani strategy”, The Red Team Analysis, May 18, 2015). It is grounded in an understanding of the spatial dimension of China, in the geographic sense, as well as in a comprehension of the different countries that are involved in the deployment of the NSR. Space is conceived as a support to spread Chinese influence and power to the “outside”, but also to allow the Middle Kingdom to “aspirate” what it needs from the “outside” to the “inside” (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la globalisation, 2014). This is why we qualify some spaces as being “useful” to the deployment of the OBOR, and why each “useful space” is related, and “useful”, to other “useful spaces”.

A fundamental “geographic useful space” for China is the Persian Gulf and its member states. As a result, Saudi Arabia is de facto of great interest for the New Silk Road Initiative. In this conceptual framework, Saudi Arabia becomes a useful space for the NSR not only because it increases the Saudi capabilities to respond to the Chinese energy needs, but also because it furthers the opening of the maritime New Silk Road to the Red Sea, thanks to the Saudi ports, as Yanbu and Djeddah. In other words, it improves the access of the Chinese civil fleet to the Red Sea, then to the Suez canal and thus to the Mediterranean markets of the Middle East, the Near East, the Maghreb and Southern Europe.

Geopolitical meaning

The integration of Saudi Arabia to the NSR has powerful geopolitical consequences for both countries. For China, the fact that the Saudi Kingdom joins its grand strategy installs China even more strongly as the centre of attraction for Gulf Countries (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The UAE and the Chinese New Silk Road”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, April 26 2017). This confers a mammoth political clout to China, which becomes a de facto “balancing influence” between the Gulf uneasy neighbours and energy actors, and between OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers such as Russia, as all want to be involved with China’s growth, while competing with each others (Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World, 2012). This international competition for the access to the Chinese market is always reinforcing the attraction of the New Silk Road.

For Saudi Arabia, integrating the New Silk Road, which has already reached out to more than twenty countries, especially in Asia and the Middle East, is tantamount to an “Asian pivot”.

Furthermore, to the least, it allows for the creation of some political and economic distance between the Kingdom and the United States. Given the importance of the U.S. for Saudi Arabia since 1944, when an alliance was struck between King Abdulaaziz Saud and President Roosevelt, according to which the U.S. committed themselves to the defence of the Kingdom in exchange for a privileged partnership on oil, this move must be decrypted (Michael Klare, Blood and oil, the dangers and consequences of America’s growing dependency on imported petroleum, 2004).

A key to understanding what is happening lies in the U.S. energy policy that supports the development of shale oil and gas operations and, as a result, competes with the Saudi production while forcing energy prices down. The U.S. becoming an economic threat, the Kingdom finds new alliances to support its development through its economic strategy of diversification (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Oil Flood (1): The Kingdom is Back” and “Oil Flood (2)- Oil and Politics in a (Real) Multipolar World”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, December 15, 2014, January 12, 2015). For now, the military component of the alliance with the US remains as it is, because Saudi Arabia remains a main oil exporter for America.

Djibouti and the Grand convergence

The “Saudi-Asian pivot” finds an interesting expression through the building of a Saudi naval base in Djibouti, which already hosts French and American bases, while China is completing the construction of its own naval base (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Maritime New Silk Road – in the Arabian Sea”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, April 19, 2017).

In the same time, Japan is starting the construction of a naval base of its own (Julian Ryall, “Japan to expand military base in Djibouti”, Jane’s 360, 14 October 2016). In other terms, Djibouti is now the place that supports the “African and Middle East pivot” of China and Japan, and the “Asian pivot” of Saudi Arabia. The presence and influence of France and America is thus relatively saturated and diluted by the spatial convergence of the NSR in their immediate neighbourhood, while Saudi Arabia – also using reciprocally the NSR – and Japan prepare their own forms of projection towards respectively Asia and the Mediterranean world.

One of the potential fundamental geopolitical uncertainty generated by this development is how other strategic Middle East countries, especially Egypt, which owns the key access to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal, are going to position themselves as far as the Chinese New Silk Road is concerned.

Featured image: One Belt, One Road – China in Red, the members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in orange. The 6 proposed corridors in black, 14 May 2017, by Lommes (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons.