Security Cooperation among Global South Countries in a Turbulent and Changing World by ZENG Xianghong and CHEN Mingxia
As an ex-officio member of the Global South and a major power, China needs to play a leading role in promoting the development and enhancement of security cooperation among the Global South states.
Welcome to the 33rd edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m SUN Chenghao, a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).
ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me.
Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com
Today, we have selected an article written by ZENG Xianghong & CHEN Mingxia, which focuses on security cooperation among states in the Global South and China’s role in it.
Summary
States in the Global South are rising and increasingly becoming a new supplier of international security public goods in a turbulent and changing world order. The security public goods provided by the Global South include a conceptualization of security cooperation and the practice of security cooperation carried out at various levels. For the Global South,“security” includes national, regional and international security, forming a trinity.
In the Global South’s conceptualization of security, domestic stability and development constitute an important cornerstone of national security, and political solutions, rather than military means, are seen as the best way to resolve national security issues. The autonomy of regional states, rather than the involvement of extraterritorial powers, is the mainstay of maintaining regional security and stability. Cooperative security, rather than confrontation between camps or military deterrence, is the path to both international security and peace. The emergence of this security concept is the result of internal push and external pull, and it has shaped the practice of security cooperation among the states of the Global South at the national, regional and global levels. Different levels and forms of security cooperation practice each point to different purposes, but they all hark back to the Global South’s concept of security.
As an ex-officio member of the Global South and a major power, China needs to continue to play a leading role in promoting the further development and enhancement of security cooperation among Global South states, so as to better provide security public goods to the international community.
Why It Matters
Since the term “Global South” appeared 55 times in the Munich Security Report 2023, it has become one of the most discussed international relations subjects. Over the past two years, events like the expansion of BRICS and the African Union joining the G20 have underlined the fact that the “Global South” is a new force playing an increasingly important role in the global governance system.
Global South states’ stance on various issues and security cooperation have the potential to hugely impact the international situation. This April, amidst US-initiated trade war tensions, President Xi’s visit to three Southeast Asian states demonstrated China’s commitment to maintaining relations with Global South states in this turbulent period. For China, analyzing their security cooperation perspectives and practices can inform its own participation and is significant for helping it to reconstruct the global security order.
The article selected on this subject provides an analysis of the existing perspectives and practices of security cooperation among the Global South states, as well as the current security situations they face. Additionally, it reflects the understanding of China’s academic community regarding the state’s position in the Global South’s cooperation and scholars’ expectations for the direction of this role’s future development.
Key Points
1. The rise of the Global South in a turbulent and changing security situation
New features of the international security situation
Great power competition
Great power competition has subtly formed a main thread in the evolution of international relations, serving as a core element of interactions among states—among which the rivalry between China and the US stands out. With the 2008 financial crisis and the emergence of China as the world’s second largest economy in 2010, the competition between China and the US has gradually grown more intense. However, it is characterized by less antagonism, more comprehensiveness and complexity than traditional great power competition (for instance, during the Cold War).
Bloc confrontation
Bloc confrontation has run through almost the entire history of international relations. Bloc confrontation has existed to some extent from the Peloponnesian War to the Cold War. NATO, as a Cold War legacy, has been enlarged and utilized against Russia in Eastern Europe. Similarly, the US has also attempted to confront China in the Asia-Pacific region. The difference now is that the blocs formed by the US in the Asia-Pacific region not only include traditional members of the Western bloc, but also states like South Korea and Australia. It seems that the Middle East will also become a major arena for bloc confrontation.
Regional conflicts
Regional conflicts are the results of internal heterogeneity within a region, and also the products of domination and subordination between the central and marginal states of the global system. The current Israel-Palestine conflict in the Middle East is an example. Having gone through five wars, true peace has never been achieved between these two disputed states.
National turmoil
National turmoil has a variety of causes, such as failures of political integration, economic regression or the deterioration of people’s livelihoods. These phenomena exist extensively in the world today. Hence, national turmoil not only occurs frequently in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Latin America, but is a threat even in Europe. South Korea’s political dispute (Dec 3, 2024) and Syria's coup (Dec 8, 2024) are both examples.
The dilemma of international security governance
Today’s international security governance principles and models are based on “European coordination”, essentially a great power monopoly excluding others from decision-making processes. Relative to Global South conceptions of security, they neglect non-traditional security issues. In the “post-post-Cold War era”, the international security situation is transforming, with traditional security issues like politics and military making a comeback, and the complex overlap of these with non-traditional security issues leading to serious problems in international security governance.
From collaborative cooperation to divergence and confrontation
In the post-Cold War era, major powers generally maintained a certain degree of coordinated cooperation to deal with global threats. Counter-terrorism coordination is an example of this. However, in recent years, when the major powers were confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the rifts among them became increasingly evident.
The tendency towards bloc confrontation and camp rivalry
As the competition among great powers becomes more apparent, the US is intensifying its efforts in constructing groups and blocs with itself at the core. The state endeavors to thereby manifest and augment its competitive prowess, with the ultimate goal of upholding its hegemony. This is leading to the erosion and fragmentation of the international security governance system.
The prevalence of American coercive diplomacy
Since Trump took office in 2017, the use of coercive diplomacy by the US has reached an unprecedented level. Using military deterrence, economic sanctions, technological blockades and other means, the US has coerced in different forms and degrees adversarial states (like Russia, Iran), competitors (like China), and allied/partner states (like NATO states, Japan, South Korea), forcing them to change or act in specific ways.
The rise of Global South states and their new role in international security affairs
Growing political and economic strength
In terms of its economies, the south is catching up with northern developed economies. The gap between them is ever-narrowing. Meanwhile, the center of the global economy is shifting from north to south. As for politics, Global South states have adhered to and promoted their strategic autonomy on international issues, as well as their self-awareness and confidence in their own development models.
Growing international influence and participation
Global South states are no longer pawns or marginal powers, but seeking to play more important roles in international affairs. They actively participate in traditional security issues, especially by promoting the peaceful resolution processes of geopolitical conflicts such as the Ukraine crisis and the Israel-Palestine conflict. They also cooperate in non-traditional security areas such as counter-terrorism, combating transnational crime, maintaining food security, and addressing climate change.
2. The Global South’s security perspective
Core ideas: domestic stability, independence, peace and cooperation
The Global South’s security perspective is an endogenous conceptualization of security, distinct from exogenous one advocated by Western states. It emphasizes that domestic security and development are inseparable. According to this conceptualization, domestic stability and development are national security cornerstones, conflicts should be resolved through political settlements, regional states’ strengths should be combined to maintain regional order, and states should favor cooperative security to achieve international security and peace, rather than bloc confrontation or military deterrence.
It’s worth noting the compatibility between the Global South’s security perspective and China’s Global Security Initiative, another public good for the international community. The initiative, as a systematic political idea, can direct the development of the Global South’s security perspective.
The motivation for unity: common shackles and pursuits
The Global South’s security perspective results from these states’ real circumstances and common visions of the future. Global South states generally have existential and developmental problems, which are historical legacies of colonialism still impacting them today. Internationally, they face exclusion and marginalization from a Western-centric order. Therefore, shaking off colonialism’s shackles, seeking more space to consolidate their existence and development, reducing Western-centrism’s constraints and creating a fairer international order are their shared pursuits.
3. Security cooperation put into practice by the Global South
State level: bilateral and multilateral cooperation in traditional and non-traditional fields
Bilateral security cooperation among major states such as China, Russia, India, and Brazil involves not only traditional aspects such as the management and control of territorial disputes, military exchanges, and cooperation, but also non-traditional aspects such as cracking down on the “three forces”: cross-border crime including drug smuggling, addressing climate change, and maintaining information security.
Multilateral security cooperation is generally manifested in two cooperation models. One is the multilateral cooperation model among major states: a classic example is BRICS and its expanded form - “BRICS Plus”. The other is the cooperation between major Global South states and other regions as whole entities, with China-other region cooperation being the most common, for instance the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum.
Regional level: regional organizations help to solve local issues
Global South states rely on regional organizations to address different security issues faced by their respective regions. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an example. In Africa, there is the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and so on. In the Middle East, there is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League, and so forth. In the Southeast Asian region, there is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Global level: building and maintaining international peace
Global South states have made great efforts to promote the peaceful settlement of regional conflicts and the maintenance of international peace. In this process, they pursue strategic autonomy and act based on their own national interests rather than those of external camps. Their stance on the Ukraine issue is an example of this. Additionally, they also participate in international peacekeeping operations within the framework of the United Nations and in the BRICS countries organization.
4. The prospect of China-led Global South security cooperation
Conceptual dimension: using the Global Security Initiative as guidance
China may be guided by the Global Security Initiative to promote the Global South’s security perspective. Compared to the traditional security perspective dominated by the West, the Global Security Initiative contains more attractive, newer ideas that transcend traditional limitations in international relations. For example, the Global Security Initiative emphasizes common security, comprehensive security, differential security, cooperative security and holistic security over zero-sum security, traditional security, homogeneous security, alliance security and partial security respectively. The ultimate implementation of these ideas and concepts will greatly enhance the universal welfare of all countries and all mankind.
Practical dimension: showing a more proactive attitude and a clearer stance
China can promote and deepen bilateral and multilateral security cooperation among major Global South states, and drive universal cooperation among Global South states through cooperation with major powers. Taking the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a model, it can guide and support the construction and development of other regional organizations, and use these regional organizations to promote the resolution of regional security issues. China can also guide and mobilize Global South states to carry out mediation and promote peace talks over international hot-spots, leading them to become more active in maintaining world peace and shaping the international security order.
Conclusion
Under global unrest and the transformation of the international order, the Global South is gradually rising, and its security cooperation is strengthening. As an emerging provider of international security public goods, the Global South offers both concepts and practices at multiple levels. Their security cooperation has achieved remarkable progress but also faces challenges, including internal disputes and competition , as well as external pressure from developed states. It’s obvious that the proper resolution of these problems cannot be achieved without the participation of China, a major and influential power. China, as an equal partner with the strength and influence to guide and promote security cooperation in the Global South, aims not only to facilitate the development and growth of Global South states, but is also motivated by the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind.
About the Authors
ZENG Xianghong曾向红: Dr. Zeng is a professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, Director of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Research Center and Deputy Director of the Institute of Central Asian Studies, Lanzhou University.
CHEN Mingxia陈明霞: Dr. Chen is a lecturer at the School of Politics and Public Administration and a research fellow at the Institute of National Security Studies, Zhengzhou University.
About the Publication
The Chinese version of this article was published in West Asia and Africa（《西亚非洲》）. West Asia and Africa is a bimonthly academic journal published by the Institute of West Asian and African Studies (IWAAS) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). From its first publication in 1980, the journal has been devoted to theoretical, strategic, comprehensive and practical ideas and standards, offering deep analyses of West Asian and African politics, economics, international relations, histories, religions, cultures, and societies. The journal is the only leading academic publication specializing in China’s West Asian and African studies.
Thanks, an excellent analysis. Yes security needs to be endogenous, inclusive of development priorities
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