Xi Jinping's Global Security Initiative

China's new worldview eschews triumphalism in favour of a more cautious external posture

On April 21, at the annual Boao Forum for Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward a new Global Security Initiative (GSI). This is the political counterpart to the earlier Global Development Initiative (GDI) he had announced at the UN on September 21, 2021. The GSI followed the Ukraine crisis while the GDI was presented as a response to the global economic crisis in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Both initiatives have in turn been linked to Mr Xi’s signature slogan of fostering a “community of shared future of mankind”.

In both speeches this idea of a common destiny of