Last month, the US-EU Trade and Technology Council — a forum focused on deepening transatlantic cooperation on things like supply chains, export controls, and tech standards — held bilateral talks in Washington, DC.
The US’s statement following the meetings noted that top American officials “stressed the importance of fortifying our collective economic security, including by further de-risking and diversifying of our economies.”
While China was not explicitly named in the statement, the country invariably looms over any discussion of economic security. Notably, there was no mention of decoupling — a phrase that US officials have sought to distance themselves from in favor of de-risking. But Beijing’s ears did perk up at “collective economic security.”
New(ish) phrase, same gist
The phrase “collective economic security,” as used in the context of the west’s attempt to reduce reliance on China, is not new. In December 2022, G7 leaders pledged to “strengthen our collective economic security to external shocks and wider risks.” Last May, British prime minister Rishi Sunak said that “[the G7’s] collective economic security matters now more than ever.” And in a September visit to Seoul, US deputy secretary of commerce emphasized the importance of protecting the “collective economic security of our allies, including Korea.”
But of late, the phrase has been increasingly picked up in Chinese-language press coverage and analyses. Last week, a researcher at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a prominent think tank affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, wrote in a widely circulated op-ed criticizing the US and EU’s pursuit of collective economic security, which he called a “false proposition.”
“[A]lthough the United States advocates ‘collective economic security’ to safeguard so-called common interests, it nakedly pursues its own self-interest in economic policy coordination involving Europe, enlarging its own country’s pie at the expense of others,” Dong Yifan wrote in the state-owned tabloid Huanqiu.
Separately, the CICIR last month published a report looking at global strategy and security risks in the year ahead. The report noted intensifying geopolitical competition that is reshaping global trade and production flows, highlighting what it sees as Washington’s attempts to “weaponize” the global economy under the banners of “nearshoring,” “friendshoring,” “de-risking,” “minilateral supply chain alliances” — and yes, “collective economic security.”
China does collective economic security, too
But Beijing really need not be surprised by the west’s transnational approach to economic security. The global nature of trade means unilateral strategies to secure supply chains are unlikely to succeed. China knows this well: that’s why it sees an urgent need for its homegrown brands to win market share worldwide and establish production facilities overseas.
“To improve [supply chain] resilience, we must tightly intertwine Chinese supply chains and global supply chains,” writes Chinese industrial development expert Lin Xueping in his new book, Supply Chain Attack and Defense. That sounds like collective economic security, just of a different flavor.