Newsman: Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called on his top national security officials to think about “worst case” scenarios and prepare for “stormy seas.”
“The complexity and difficulty of the national security issues we now face have increased significantly,” Xi said Tuesday at a meeting of the party’s National Security Commission, state news agency Xinhua reported.
“We must adhere to bottom-line thinking and worst-case-scenario thinking, and get ready to undergo the major tests of high winds and rough waves, and even perilous, stormy seas,” he added.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Xi said China must proactively shape a “secured external environment” to better maintain the security of the country’s “opening up” and “promote the deep integration of development and security.”
President Xi said China must speed up the modernization of its national security system and capabilities, with a focus on making them more effective in “actual combat and practical use.”
He also called for China to push ahead with the construction of a national security risk monitoring and early warning system, enhance national security education and improve the management of data and artificial intelligence security.
The latest stern instructions from Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades, comes as the ruling Communist Party hardens efforts to counter any perceived internal and external threats and increasingly hostile international environment.
Since coming to power a decade ago, Xi has expanded the concept of national security to cover everything from politics, economy, defense, culture and ecology to cyberspace. It extends from the deep sea and the polar regions to space, as well as big data and artificial intelligence.
Under Xi’s notion of “comprehensive national security,” China has introduced a raft of legislation to protect itself against perceived threats, including laws on counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, cybersecurity, foreign non-government organizations, national intelligence and data security.
Most recently, it broadened the scope of its already sweeping counter-espionage law from covering state secrets and intelligence to any “documents, data, materials or items related to national security and interests.”
