From fragmentation to integration: China’s “Vertical-Horizontal Model” for the protection of overseas interests

Abstract

Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, China’s overseas interests have been faced with a growing array of multidimensional threats. China has carried out legislative and institutional reforms, forming a “vertical-horizontal model” for interagency cooperation and government-society fusion. The central government of China has passed a series of legislative acts to legalise China’s protection of overseas interests, a top-down vertical governance. Parallel ministries, departments, and offices have formed task-based institutions through consultation to promote China’s overseas interest protection, thereby establishing a cross-sectoral horizontal governance mechanism. The implementation of the “vertical-horizontal model,” however, confronts an array of hurdles, with heavy bureaucracy potentially giving rise to problems such as inefficiency and collective irresponsibility.

Keywords
China’s foreign policy; overseas interests; legislative reforms; institutional reforms; Vertical-Horizontal Model

Introduction

During the final two decades of the twentieth century, the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) largely refrained from using the expression “China’s overseas interests,” as the country’s external interests were still limited and the notion carried strong ideological associations with imperialism and colonialism. At the turn of the 21^st century, however, with the frequent interaction between Beijing and the rest of the world, China’s overseas interests have expanded exponentially. In 2004, then Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered a speech at the 10th meeting of diplomatic envoys, stressing that “we should enhance China’s ability to protect its overseas interests and serve Chinese citizens and legal persons abroad” (Hu 2004). This was the first time that a Chinese top leader had used the term “China’s overseas interests”. How does China reconcile its overseas interest protection with its non-interference principle? This is of great academic and policy significance.

The current literature on China’s overseas interests is rich. The first group investigates the connotation of China’s overseas interests. The debates are whether they are material, normative, or institutional. Some highlight that they are material only, while others argue that China’s overseas interests include not only material, but also normative and institutional ones (Arduino 2017; Xiao 2017, 24-36; Su 2009, 13-20).

The second group probes China’s measures for risk assessment and prevention. The debates are: which kind of threat is overwhelming: regime changes, terrorist threats, social unrest, legal challenges, or natural disasters? (Gu and Jin 2014; Xue and Zheng 2019, 453-510; Wang 2010, 23-25)

The third group investigates ways of protecting China’s overseas interests, including diplomatic, legal, and military endeavours, such as private security contractors, public diplomacy, and related measures (Ghiselli 2021; Ghiselli 2022, 171-174; Xin 2020, 205-221).

The above research largely focuses on China’s conceptions and behaviours in overseas interest protection but has ignored its domestic legislative and institutional reforms for the protection of overseas interests. This paper attempts to fill the void and decode the “black box” by conducting interviews (regarded as the field research by relying on primary sources) and by referring to scholarly research (relying on secondary sources based on desk research). On the one hand, the authors conducted interviews with approximately 10 Chinese ambassadors, managers of state-owned enterprises, and officials from China’s Ministry of Commerce, among others, to reveal the hidden logic of China’s overseas interest protection. Due to the sensitivity of the theme, all interviewees requested anonymity. They help us better understand the rationale of China’s overseas interest protection and mechanisms for inter-agency collaboration and competition in the process. This information is fragmented, but it helps the paper reconstruct causal mechanisms. On the other hand, process-tracing methodology is applied to review the history, development, and prospects of China’s legal and institutional evolution. We rely on diverse databases to refer to scholarly research that sheds light on systemic assessment of China’s overseas interest protection.

The paper combines theoretical and empirical studies. First, it reviews China’s expanding overseas interests and the predicaments of protection. Next, the paper proposes a new analytical framework, namely the “vertical-horizontal model”. In the empirical parts, the paper investigates how China implements its legislative (vertical governance) and institutional (horizontal governance) reforms. Finally, the paper examines the hurdles and limits of the “vertical-horizontal model”.

The volatile international situation and the fragility of China’s overseas interests

We posit that China differentiates its “domestic” and “overseas” interests in accordance with its physical border line. Overseas interests, a vague terminology, refers to the interests of government, enterprises, social organisorganisations, and citizens that are generated through their global contacts, which are beyond its sovereign jurisdiction. In this paper, China’s overseas interests are defined as tangible material assets related to the rights and interests of life and property of Chinese entities abroad. Non-material interests such as national reputation and discourse power are excluded from our discussion, as they pertain to international prestige, discourse, and norms that are difficult to measure (Liu 2017, 130-131). The paper highlights that China’s overseas interests include the personal and property safety of overseas citizens and expatriates, the political, economic, and military interests of the state, the security of overseas institutions; and enterprises, international shipping routes, and China’s vessels (Zou and Wang 2020, 97).

The accumulating overseas Chinese interests are the outcome of expanding domestic-international interaction. As late-comers to international markets, Chinese multinationals have been forced into riskier territories shunned by Western firms (Zou & Jones 2020, 93). Since the BRI was launched in 2013, China has been increasingly active in its economic and trade interactions with the world, thus its overseas interests have been generated by the overflow of the national interests beyond its border. The BRI imaginary was translated into material policies that promoted a grand transregional ‘spatial fix’. This strategy consolidates a China-oriented infrastructure mode of growth across production, finance, and security (Sum 2019, 52, 528). As of April 2019, China had signed BRI cooperation protocols with 127 countries and 29 international organisorganisations. At the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2019, China had signed 283 agreements with its global counterparts (Institute of Contemporary China 2020, 18, 180-181). By the end of 2019, China’s overseas assets had reached $7.5 trillion, of which the net assets were $2.2 trillion, equivalent to approximately 50% and 13% of China’s GDP in 2020, respectively. As many as 27 thousand Chinese multinational corporations have established 43 thousand branches in 188 countries and regions, employing 492 thousand technicians and workers abroad (Li 2021, A12). By 2024, China had become the major trading partner of more than 150 countries, generating prominent overseas interests.

First, China’s overseas interests are aggrandising. From the perspective of political and economic interaction, as of 2023, China had established diplomatic relations with 181 countries and built partnerships with 112 countries and international organisorganisations. According to the data released by the “Global Diplomacy Index”, as of 2023, China had set up 274 embassies and consulates abroad, ranking first in the world (Global Diplomacy Index 2024). Before the outbreak of COVID-19, the number of Chinese citizens travelling abroad had reached 155 million, and the number of overseas Chinese students exceeded 890 thousand (Li Wei 2021, 34-37). The frequent political and economic interactions between China and the rest of the world make it pressing for Beijing to protect its overseas interests.

Second, the strategic competition among great powers has exacerbated China’s overseas interests. In 2019, the number of Chinese enterprises in Africa alone reached10,000, of which 90% were private (Xing 2019, 19). In 2024, China was Africa’s largest economic partner for the 17th consecutive year. However, the US strategy of decoupling China has deteriorated China’s overseas interests, particularly in 5G, Artificial Intelligence, big data, and other high-tech companies. The arguments of “debt trap”, “neo-colonialism”, “resource plundering”, and “business corruption” have delegitimised China’s expanding overseas investments in the world. In the second term of President Trump, the US has exerted greater pressure on its global allies and partners to consolidate security supervision on Chinese investments. The extension of China’s interests and its vulnerability epitomise the difficulty of protecting China’s overseas interests (Himmer and Rod 2022, 250-272). In the context of the expansion of Chinese overseas interests, the “China threat hypothesis” is gaining traction. Domestic reform for protecting China’s overseas interests is a response to international demonisation.

Third, the slowdown in global economic growth, the surge of populism, and the threat of terrorism have made it imperative for China to protect its overseas interests. In 2018, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, handled 85,439 incidents involving Chinese citizens, including 41,496 cases of consular protection and assistance: 10,938 cases in Europe, 10,583 in Southeast Asia, 4,216 in Northeast Asia, 3,300 in Eurasia, 3,229 in the Middle East, 2,479 in sub-Saharan Africa, 1,841 in Oceania, 1,781 in North America and 1,076 in Latin America (People’s Daily Overseas Edition, 2019).

Thus, due to its fragile overseas interests, China has shifted its security strategy priorities from national to human, and from domestic to overseas. The Chinese government implements a “vertical-horizontal model” and launches legislative and institutional reforms to enhance its capacity to protect its overseas interests.

Analytical framework: “Vertical-Horizontal Model” and China’s domestic reforms to safeguard its overseas interests

The Chinese government has undertaken no fewer than seven major programs for the structural downsizing of the organs of the State Council since 1949. The first three streamlining exercises were orchestrated during the Mao Zedong period in 1954–56, 1959–61, and 1968–70. In each case, the ministries, commissions, and other affiliated organisations within the State Council were reduced and restructured to cut overlapping functions, top-heavy management, and low efficiency, but with increasingly strict government management of the economy, the State Council departments expanded again after each cycle of reduction (Chan Drewry 2001, 555).

In the past decade, China’s governance reform has institutionalised its party-state relations and transformed them into a partocracy. The governance system reform, particularly undertaken by Xi Jinping, has begun the process of institutionalising, rationalising, and legalising the old party-state system through top-down interagency coordination (Guo 2020, 809). In November 2021, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee reviewed the National Security Strategy (2021-2025), stressing that China needs to enhance industrial resilience and resistance, build a secure bottom line to prevent systemic financial risks, ensure food, energy, mineral and key infrastructure security, and strengthen protection of overseas interests (News Agency 2021).

This paper proposes a “vertical-horizontal model” to analyse China’s overseas interest protection. “Vertical governance” and “horizontal governance” are interwoven in Chinese state governance. The former refers to the enactment of laws and regulations by Chinese institutions and departments at the upper level, particularly, the supreme authority of the Central Government of China. Thus, the managerial mode is top-down, hierarchical, and centralised. It belongs to hard governance because all the laws and regulations are mandatory.

The latter integrates the ministries, local provinces, enterprises, and social sectors at all levels to protect China’s overseas interests. Compared with the “vertical model” of law and regulation enforcement, the “horizontal model” is “decentralised”. All the stakeholders reach consensus through consultation, and the mechanisms for China’s overseas protection are not legally binding. For example, each province and municipality builds a coordination to integrate all resources for the protection of its overseas interests. It belongs to soft governance because it is task-based and less mandatory.

Different from the US and Brazil, which have smaller and weaker governments, China has a bigger and stronger government, making the central government easier to mobilise resources. By contrast with the US and Brazil, whose overseas companies are private, a large number of Chinese companies investing abroad are state-owned. As a socialist country, China plays a predominant role in overseas interest protection. Therefore, the “vertical-horizontal model” of China is more state-centric and top-down, and it places emphasis on power concentration, while the US and Brazilian models of overseas interest protection are basically bottom-up and market-oriented.

The “vertical-horizontal model” bridges the gap between domestic and international profiles; thus, it is based on the normative-institutional approach to China policy studies. “Vertical governance” highlights that the upper authorities pass laws and regulations and bear the responsibility of protecting China’s overseas interests; “horizontal governance” stresses that the protection of China’s overseas interests is the task of the whole government and society, thus every sector must contribute to the joint mission (Guo and Zheng 2020, 4). The “vertical-horizontal model” aims to facilitate the protection of overseas interests.

China is a complex society, unitary in form but diverse in agencies. Each department has its own interests and priorities; inter-agency coordination and government-society fusion might be a solution to achieving excellence in overseas interest protection. For example, the Foreign Ministry lacks authority to oversee China’s overseas economic affairs; the Ministry of Commerce is seldom informed of political and security considerations when implementing investment projects. Interagency coordination is time-consuming in decision-making, making it impossible to undertake the task of promoting policy coordination. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs convened a special session on foreign security affairs, and the Ministry of Public Security dispatched numerous police liaison officers abroad (Guo and Zheng 2020, 7). However, the above legislative and institutional reforms, albeit a good beginning, cannot eradicate the problem of “fragmentation”. Therefore, China’s legislative and institutional reforms aim to enhance the efficiency of overseas interest protection by integrating vertical and horizontal governance through law enforcement, interagency cooperation, and whole-of-society participation.

In the “vertical governance”, the legislative and institutional reforms promoted by the party-state to safeguard its overseas interests demonstrate the following characteristics. First, China adheres to the top-down and government-led trajectory; thus, the protection of its overseas interests secures an increasing importance in China’s overall diplomacy. By emphasising “people first,” the authoritarian government positions itself as a “parent,” providing a protective umbrella for its nationals, thereby consolidating the basis for its rule’s legitimacy. It is an important driver of China’s domestic legislation and institutional reforms. The Chinese government has borne almost all the costs for each overseas evacuation mission. For example, during the 2006 evacuation from Lebanon, Beijing not only covered the costs for nationals in Lebanon but also the costs incurred after the evacuation to a third country, Syria. The total cost of repatriating overseas Chinese from Libya in 2011 was US$ 15.2 billion, with a per capita cost of US$ 4,238 (about 28,000 RMB), all covered by the Chinese government (Xiang 2019, 130). In the 2011 Mekong River case, China dispatched police to investigate the attack after obtaining consent from the host countries. In the Mekong River Joint Patrol and Law Enforcement Mission, established after the massacre, China contributed the largest share of personnel and funding to the four countries’ law enforcement and patrol missions (Liu 2017, 147). In 2022 and 2023, China evacuated thousands of expatriates from Ukraine and Sudan, respectively, after hostilities erupted, and the Chinese government covered all the expenditure as well.

In the “horizontal governance”, China applies a problem-solving narrative based on historical institutionalism. We argue that China constantly enhances the effectiveness of inter-agency coordination. Beijing has established a variety of entities to promote policy coordination in overseas interest protection, including the PLA Strategic Planning Department, which integrates and facilitates global outreach. These measures have greatly improved the coordination of China’s decision-making mechanism (Zuo 2017, 23). For instance, China’s response to the 2011 Libya crisis symbolises the inter-agency coordination for overseas citizen protection. Over a 12-day period in February and March 2011, coordinated by the State Council, China evacuated more than 35,000 Chinese nationals from civil war-torn Libya, testing the inter-agency coordination capacity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Commerce, Public Security, etc. (Zerba 2014, 1093). The Foreign Affairs Working Committee of the CPC Central Committee is a coordinating body, deliberatively designed and directly administered by the CPC Central Committee, and was updated in March 2018 (the former was the CPC Foreign Affairs Leading Group), according to the Roadmap of Deepening the Reform of the CPC and the State. In December 2023, the Foreign Affairs Working Committee of the CPC Central Committee held a conference aimed at consolidating the CPC’s power and leadership in China’s diplomacy and foreign affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023).

In terms of “horizontal governance”, for defending China’s overseas rights and interests, China’s inter-agency coordination is coming into being. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has established the CPC Leading Group for Maritime Rights and Interests. In 2018, the Chinese Government initiated a new round of institutional reform under which the relevant functions of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) were integrated into the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and other relevant Ministries (Deng & Shi 2023, 91). It aims to integrate maritime law enforcement with institutional efficiency.

To strengthen economic diplomacy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the International Economic and Financial Advisory Committee in 2013, integrating the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to facilitate economic diplomacy. The three agencies all served China’s economic cooperation abroad. The NDRC issued a Catalogue of Investment Projects Subject to Governmental Verifications. The 2013 version of the catalogue requires NDRC verification for outbound investments by centrally administered state-owned enterprises (CASOEs) or for investments involving sensitive countries and regions. It defines “sensitive countries” as countries and regions which do not have diplomatic relations with China, or are under international sanction, or embroiled in ongoing wars or riots (DUCHÂTEL 2014, 36). It has provided guidelines for Chinese companies to avoid investing in Iran, Syria, Yemen, among others.

In “horizontal governance”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also established the International Law Advisory Committee in 2015 to fully leverage international law think tanks. These institutional innovations have ensured that the authorities of the CPC Standing Committee, as well as the State Council, minimise the problem of fragmentation (Zhang 2016, 4-9). During the administrations of President Jiang Zemin and President Hu Jintao, there were two administrative branches--the Party (the CPC) and the State (the State Council), which lowered work efficiency. Since Xi Jinping assumed the presidency in 2012, China has set up new institutions for strategic planning with the leadership of the Standing Committee of CPC and the central government, forging a hierarchical decision-making model. Since 2012, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took initiative in the establishment of an emergency working group consisting of 38 heads of different ministries and commissions, under which China built a forward contact group, a logistics group, an information group, a communication group which were on duty for the purpose of coordinating all sectors and dealing with emergencies (Wang 2022, 77; Guo and Zheng 2020, 6). China evacuated its citizens from Ukraine in 2022 and pulled out expatriates from Syria in December 2024 after the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime, and the emerging working group played a key role in the above missions.

Vertical governance: China’s legislative reforms for protecting its overseas interests

Vertical governance means that China’s central government, as an ultimate authoritative entity, carries out legislative reforms and passes hard laws to protect its overseas interests. The central government has the jurisdiction. The governance process is top-down and constitutes a form of hard governance.

Since 2012, China has consolidated its law enforcement and increased its resolve to safeguard its overseas interests. Xi pointed out, at the 19^th work report of the Communist Party of China National Congress, that “China would never develop itself at the expense of other countries’ interests, nor would it give up its legitimate rights or interests. No one should expect that China would swallow the bitter fruit of harming China’s interests” (Xi 2020, 46). This indicates the new administration’s assertiveness to protect its interests.

China’s global investments are mainly in volatile developing countries. By the end of 2024, 89.2% of China’s Foreign Direct Investment was in developing countries, amounting to $280 billion (Ministry of Commerce 2024, 21). To safeguard its fragile overseas interests, China, on the one hand, relies on legislative reforms. On the other hand, China gives full play to vertical governance: taking the legislative and institutional advantages of a socialist country in pooling all resources for mega projects. In order to protect its growing but fragile overseas interests, the Xi administration adheres to the strategy of strengthening the centralised and unified leadership of the CPC in foreign affairs, constantly updating its domestic laws and regulations to better safeguard its overseas interests (Xi 2018). China’s legislative reforms for protecting its overseas interests reflect its outlook of “vertical governance”.

First of all, the Arbitration Law of the PRC was revised twice in 2009 and 2017 to safeguard its commercial interests; the employment conditions of arbitrators, and other provisions were modified for overseas interest protection. The new version expands the scope of foreign-related arbitration cases, supports arbitration institutions in strengthening international exchanges and cooperation, encourages them to go global, brings in foreign investment, and expands the opening up of arbitration to the outside world (the Arbitration Law of the PRC, 2025). The Law was ratified by the NPC of China in September 2025. The judicial review of foreign-related arbitral awards mainly depended on China’s “internal reporting system”, established by the Supreme People’s Court of China (Wang 2021, 29-30). This is China’s legislative endeavour to protect its overseas commercial interests.

In 2005, China approved the Notice of the General Office of the State Council on Transmitting the Opinions of the Ministry of Commerce and other Departments on Strengthening the Safety of Institutions and Personnel of Overseas Chinese Enterprises. The Ministries of Commerce, of Foreign Affairs, of the NDRC, of Public Security, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the State Administration of Work Safety Regulations on the Safety Management of Institutions and Personnel of Overseas Chinese Enterprises and Regulations on Emergency Response and Disposal of Overseas Security Incidents jointly issued a new regulation as a response to overseas emergency and crisis (Ling and Jiang 2021, 204). In 2010, the aforementioned agencies further amended laws and regulations to protect overseas commercial interests. In 2013, the Ministry of Commerce issued provisions on emergency response and disposal of overseas security incidents in overseas investment and cooperation, further reforming emergency disposal measures for addressing overseas security risks.

Since the 18^th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, the new administration has been even more assertive in protecting overseas interest. The Government Work Report in March 2016 proposed, for the first time, accelerating the construction of overseas interest protection capacity. On June 26, 2017, President Xi highlighted that the safety of overseas enterprises and foreign investment was an important part of the government’s task. “We should adhere to the party’s leadership over the safety of overseas enterprises and investment, strengthen supervision and management, improve legal protection, foster international security cooperation, and establish a unified and efficient mechanism to protect overseas enterprises under the general framework of the national security system.” (Li, Lin and Zhang 2019, 84)

Along the BRI, 64 countries are involved in diverse domestic and international ventures. In January 2018, the BRI International Commercial Dispute Settlement Mechanism and Regulations were issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council. It was proposed that the Supreme People’s Court set up an international commercial court and take the lead in establishing an international business committee of experts, thus forming a convenient, quick, and low-cost “one-stop” dispute settlement centre serving the BRI. In particular, it provides a new forum for international dispute settlement between China and countries in Eurasia and Africa. According to the relevant provisions of the international commercial court, for international commercial disputs accepted by arbitration institutions incorporated into the “one-stop” international commercial dispute settlement mechanism, the parties may submit applications for arbitration to the international commercial court(Wang 2021, 30). It is an important endeavour to safeguard its overseas interests by legal means. Through legislative reforms, China can strengthen the formulation and amendment of laws to better safeguard its overseas business interests. There is concern from abroad that the establishment of domestic arbitration mechanisms within the framework of the BRI—ostensibly justified in terms of safeguarding China’s external interests—may be interpreted as reflecting an “imperialist” bias. Thus, China conducted consultations with the target countries to jointly protect its overseas interests.

Secondly, with respect to physical security overseas, the National Security Act and the Anti-terrorism Act are the primary laws. From December 2018 to January 2019, anti-China rallies and demonstrations escalated in Kyrgyzstan; on December 20, 2018, about 200 people gathered in front of the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan, shouting anti-China slogans. In September and October 2019, Kazakhstan witnessed an anti-China demonstration complaining of China’s “transfer of polluted and backward industries into the country”. From January to February 2020, residents of Kyrgyzstan held protests, forcing the cancellation of the industrial trade logistics centre project, to be invested in Chinese companies (Su 2020, 36). In 2022 and 2023, Chinese expatriates were attacked in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc. China relies on the “vertical-horizontal model” to achieve positive outcomes and address these hurdles.

China officially implemented the National Security Law in July 2015 and the Anti-Terrorism Law in January 2016. The cornerstone of China’s new approach is its first counterterrorism law. Although the primary goal of the legislation is to strengthen the legal arsenal of the state’s public security apparatus, there are also foreign policy motivations and implications (Duchâtel 2016, 6). Articles 59 and 71 of the Anti-Terrorism Law stipulate that “after reaching an agreement with relevant countries and after reporting it to the State Council for approval, the Public Security and the National Security Department of the State Council may dispatch personnel abroad to fulfil anti-terror mission.” It also stipulates that “the dispatch of personnel from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese People’s Armed Police to carry out anti-terror missions abroad shall be approved by the Central Military Commission.” This provision provides a legal basis for deploying the armed forces abroad to conduct counterterrorism operations and protect China’s overseas interests (Mei 2019, 6). However, it has never happened. In April 2022, three Chinese tutors and a local driver were killed in a suicide bombing near Karachi University’s Confucius Institute, Pakistan, but China did not dispatch armed forces abroad because China was concerned that it might be against its non-interference principle.

The two legal provisions above affect various agencies, including the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Public Security, National Security, Commerce, Finance, Supervision and Administration of State-owned Assets, Tourism, Transportation, and other competent departments (Ling and Jian 2021, 204-205). However, these two laws are still vague: they do not specify how to establish a permanent institution for protecting the safety of overseas Chinese, nor do they give a green light for Chinese private security contractors to carry weapons abroad.

The Chinese military adopts a cautious approach to safeguarding overseas interests, in case the “China threat hypothesis” spreads in target countries. The construction of China’s strategic delivery support fleet started relatively late, which originated from the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) for the construction and development of military forces and the professional support team for national defence transportation. The White Paper “China’s National Defence in the New Era”, issued by the State Council in July 2019, clearly underlined that China would unswervingly pursue a defensive national defence policy. The mission and task of the Chinese army in the new era is “to provide strategic support for consolidating the leadership and socialist system of the CPC, for safeguarding national sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, and for China’s overseas interests, etc.” (Chen et al. 2019, 11-12) The White Paper has also become a guideline for the Chinese army to safeguard its overseas interests in the new era.

Finally, China has also enacted new laws to address Western sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction. In recent years, China has fostered diverse institutions to promote cooperation with Global South countries to minimise risks caused by the US sanctions, such as BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China-CELAC Forum, etc. Within the Global South umbrella, the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) and New Development Bank (NDB) represent ‘sub-imperial’ finance, insofar as, by all indications, they fit into – instead of providing alternatives to – the prevailing world systems of sovereign debt and project credits (Bond 2016, 611). Against the backdrop of great-power rivalry, some Western countries have made significant changes to relevant domestic policies on national security censorship and supply-chain decoupling (Gao 2024). As counter measure, on June 10, 2021, the 29th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress adopted the Anti-foreign Sanction Law of the PRC. This is similar to measures for blocking the improper extraterritorial application of foreign laws and measures previously issued by China’s Ministry of Commerce. In great power rivalry, Chinese enterprises with overseas investments had to cooperate with embassies and consulates abroad and relevant ministries and commissions at home to collect relevant information, make overall assessments from the national level on foreign anti-sanction, anti-interference and anti-long arm jurisdiction caused by Western governments, and enhance the ability to protect overseas interests of state-run and private enterprises in coping with challenges and risks (Pu and An 2021, 33). When US President Donald Trump announced a ban on Huawei infrastructure in the US in May 2019, it followed a litany of accusations and counteraccusations of hacking and industrial espionage between US and Chinese telecom firms dating back to at least 2003(Westhuizen 2024, 4). To avoid damages caused by “long-arm jurisdiction” and the decoupling of supply chains, especially in the 5G and other high-tech domains, China has enacted the Anti-foreign Sanctions Law and Unreliable Entities List to counterbalance Western sanctions . In March 2025, Trump’s tariffs prompted China to retaliate with 34% levy on U.S. imports and key mineral export controls. Chinese Premier Li Qiang signed a State Council decree to unveil the regulation on implementing the Anti-foreign Sanctions Law, comprising 22 articles, set to take effect (State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 2025).

Table 1
Vertical governance and China’s legislative reforms for protecting its overseas interests

Category	Laws	Year of Pass
Safeguarding overseas commercial interests	Overseas Chinese Enterprises and Regulations on Emergency Response and Disposal of Overseas Security Incidents	2005
	The provisions on emergency response and disposal of overseas security incidents in overseas investment and cooperation	2013
	international commercial court and international business committee of experts	2018
	The Arbitration Law	2025
Protecting physical security of overseas Chinese	The National Security Law	2015
	The Anti-Terrorism Law	2016
	The Regulations of Consular Protection and Assistance	2018
Countering the discriminatory reviews and regulations of Chinese overseas investment	Unreliable Entities List	2020
	Rules on Counteracting Unjustified Extra-Territorial Application of Foreign Legislation and Other Measures	2021
	The Anti-foreign Sanction Law	2021

• Summarised by the authors

The above laws and regulations are responses to a variety of risks, including terrorist attacks, regime changes, crimes, natural disasters, and the target countries’ investment censorship and foreign sanctions.

Horizontal Governance: China’s Institutional Reforms for the Protection of Its Overseas Interests

Horizontal governance means that China’s diverse ministries, departments, and offices, as parallel and independent entities, participate in institutional reforms and rebuild institutions to protect China’s overseas interests. These agencies are functionally equivalent, and governance processes rely on equal consultation. Thus, it is a kind of soft governance.

China’s risk management disadvantage was acute due to the fact that the organisational and technological disadvantages pushed Chinese enterprises to pursue overseas assets in the periphery and risky ventures where there was a relatively low level of competition from American and European oil majors (Patey 2017, 759; Yang 2019, 103-130). In China’s view, the more dispersed overseas interests are, the greater the risk is, and the more sophisticated institutions are needed to strengthen inter-agency coordination. In 2014, President Xi Jinping pointed out at the CPC Foreign Affairs Working Conference that China would earnestly safeguard its overseas interests and continuously improve the capacity of interest protection. To comprehensively safeguard its overseas interests under the changed situation in the BRI era, the Xi administration has consolidated a centralised and unified leadership combining the CPC, the State Council, and its overseas consulates. Beijing is implementing reforms to its external work system and mechanisms, strengthening overall planning and coordination among agencies, departments, and entities, and strengthening the development of the contingent of foreign affairs cadres, to provide a guarantee for establishing a new institution for external work (Xi 2017, 444).

First, the National Security Council (NSC) is a typical embodiment of China’s top-level interagency coordination to safeguard its overseas interests. In September 2000, the CPC Central Committee declared to establish a “CPC National Security Leadership Group” to work together with the “CPC Foreign Affairs Leadership Group”, i.e. two agencies in name but one unity in essence-the two agencies have different functions, but the work teams are the same. In 2013, the NSC was formally established to safeguard China’s domestic security while defending overseas interests and maritime shipping lanes (Zhang 2021, 88). The Council is hierarchical and is chaired by President Xi. It has about a dozen standing members and non-permanent members to integrate the resources of the Central Military Commission, the Ministry of National Defense, of Security, of Public Security, of Foreign Affairs, of Commerce, the Hong Kong and Macao Office, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the Information Office of the State Council, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, the International Department of the CPC Central Committee and the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army.

As the decision-making and coordination body of the CPC Central Committee on national security, the NSC is responsible to the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and reviews major issues and important tasks related to national security. Thus, the NSC has both internal and external functions, which is the most authoritative entity supervising overseas interest protection. It has the characteristics of coordinating domestic and international agencies and, in particular, integrating internal and external affairs.

On April 15, 2014, at the first session of the NSC, President Xi put forward an overall concept of China-style national security:

“We must adhere to the overall concept of national security, take people’s security as the goal, political security as the core, economic security as the foundation, and take military, cultural and social security as the guarantee. Based on promoting international security, we will embark on a path of national security with Chinese characteristics.” (China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations 2021, vii)

It can be seen from Xi’s remark that China’s outlook is that of an overall security, including China’s political, maritime, ecological, social, cultural, and commercial security. The establishment of the Office for Coordination Mechanisms of the NSC is more substantive and institutionalised than the original National Security Leadership Group because President Xi Jinping leads the new institution; the updated and more authoritative institution helps China better combine its internal and external security agencies and strengthen the protection of its overseas interests.

The Report of the 19th CPC National Congress further proposed that with people’s security as the end and political security as the core, China should coordinate external and internal security, homeland and national security, traditional and non-traditional security, individual and common security (Full text of Xi Jinping’s report at 19th CPC National Congress, 2017). Guided by a holistic national security outlook, Beijing coordinates its domestic and overseas agencies, treating the development of people’s livelihoods as the foundation and treating the construction of a secure China as the starting point. These measures aim to protect its overseas interests, so as to maximise expatriates’ physical and asset security and meet expatriates’ growing security needs abroad. China stressed that in the new era, under the overall planning of the NSC, efforts should be made to build a firewall for China’s overseas interests with diplomatic and consular protection as the goal and state-run and private enterprises, private security companies, insurance companies, overseas Chinese groups, and other social forces as the participants (Zhang 2019, 1-7).

Dispatching overseas security forces involves many military and civilian departments, such as the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defence, Public Security, and Commerce. Thus, China set up a competent authority for building a group of overseas security forces within the NSC framework, establishing a national command and coordination centre for the overall protection of its overseas interests, including policy-planning, inter-agency coordination, and emergency management. The Centre is responsible for strategic decision-making. Apart from governmental agencies, the Centre integrates state-owned enterprises and non-governmental actors to ensure the coordinated development of China’s overseas security capacity (Ling and Jiang 2021, 204).

Secondly, the consular protection mechanism led by the Foreign Ministry has made progress in interagency coordination. In 2000, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued for the first time the “Guideline to Consular Protection and Services Abroad”, which defined the scope of consular protection, assistance, and services. In 2003, the Foreign Ministry revised and updated a guideline which further emphasised the service functions of China’s embassies and consulates for safeguarding overseas Chinese citizens, in order to gradually standardise and institutionalise this work. In 2004, China’s Foreign Ministry took initiatives in establishing an inter-agency meeting on the security protection of overseas Chinese citizens and institutions, with the participation of 26 relevant ministries and commissions of the State Council, such as the Ministry of Commerce, of Public Security, and of Defence (People’s Net, 2023).

The Foreign Ministry is responsible for formulating overseas security policies and measures, addressing major consular incidents, and facilitating the diplomatic settlement of expatriate-related crises. In May 2006, the consular protection division of the Consular Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was officially established to protect the personal and property safety of overseas Chinese. It aims to build an early warning system, and the website of China’s Foreign Ministry opened columns such as “consular protection”, “consular news”, “consular certifications”, “overseas Chinese affairs”, “precautions for citizens going abroad” and “special reminders for Chinese expatriates”, which are updated on daily basis (Zhang and Sun 2019, 111).

With the accelerating pace of China’s “going global”, the task of consular protection becomes increasingly arduous. In June 2007, the Consular Protection and Coordination Centre, affiliated to China’s Foreign Ministry, was upgraded as the top priority of the consular emergency management. In August 2007, under the coordination of the Foreign Ministry, the plenary meeting of the inter-agency meeting was held in Beijing, which further highlighted the “grand consular model” proposed by the State Council in coordination with various government departments, and upgraded the division to the Centre for Consular Assistance and Protection (Zerba 2014, 1102). In 2011, using the joint meeting mechanism as the platform, China established a “five in one” linkage network for overseas security work, comprising the central government, local governments, embassies and consulates abroad, enterprises, and individuals (Zhang and Sun 2019, 118). The regulations on protecting overseas assets and personnel, formulated in 2010, further emphasised that the disposal of major overseas expatriate emergencies should be addressed under the unified leadership of the joint inter-agency meeting (Wang and Yu 2022, 52-53). In this way, the Foreign Ministry has secured greater authority in the protection of overseas interests. In November 2011, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched the China Consular Service Network to provide consular protection and information for Chinese enterprises and legal persons abroad, and used the “Diplomatic PHS” Microblog and WeChat to issue security alerts and offer consular assistance. In 2011, more than 20 departments, including the Foreign Ministry, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, established the “Ministerial Coordination Mechanism Meeting for Going Global” to further strengthen consular protection (Zhang 2021, 88).

After the BRI was launched, China’s inter-agency cooperation has been more substantial. In September 2014, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs updated the old institution and built the Emergency Centre for Consular Protection, and set up the “12308” consular protection hotline as well as the Centre for Global Consular Protection and Service Emergency Call under the guidance of the Foreign Ministry, aiming to improve the online consular services and provide foreign security information services for overseas Chinese citizens and enterprises. Since then, China’s consular protection has provided a strong guarantee for Chinese enterprises and citizens to go abroad and implement various BRI projects (Hu 2020, 45-47). In March 2018, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs drafted the regulations on Consular Protection and Assistance based on its practice. Thereafter, it was approved by the National People’s Congress and became a law. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee proposed to build an overseas interest protection as well as early warning and prevention system, improve the consular protection mechanism, safeguard the safety and legitimate rights and interests of overseas compatriots, and ensure the safety of major projects, personnel, and institutions (Wang and Xu 2022, A12).

Thirdly, the National Agency for International Development (NAID), originally under the Ministry of Commerce, also formulated an interagency cooperation mechanism (Anonymous 2018, 25). In 2009, China and the OECD-DAC jointly established a research group of the China Development Assistance Committee, which provided an international platform for developing countries to share knowledge and expertise to promote economic growth and reduce poverty. Different from other countries, China’s foreign aid was implemented by the Ministry of Commerce instead of the Foreign Ministry, but the latter was reportedly competing for power for a long time, as it wants to have more influence in domestic politics. In particular, after the 18^th CPC National Congress, China found it necessary to integrate foreign aid into a unified way of managing foreign affairs, to better serve the overall layout of China’s general diplomacy and to build the BRI. To share power and responsibilities between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, China established the NAID as a direct organ of the State Council. It can, on the one hand, offer aid to target countries; on the other hand, it can expand China’s interests abroad within the BRI framework. China’s foreign aid encompasses a wide range of activities, providing an increasing amount of development assistance that serves China’s broader diplomatic objectives.¹

The establishment of the NAID is not only for enhancing the efficiency of China’s foreign aid, but also for safeguarding its overseas interests, because economic aid and the expansion of overseas interests are two sides of the same coin. On March 13, 2018, at the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress, China formally announced its intention to establish the NAID (Hu and Huang 2018, 29-31). The main tasks of the NAID include formulating strategic guidelines, plans, and policies for foreign aid, coordinating major foreign aid programs, offering policy papers for the central government, promoting reform on foreign aid methods, and supervising and evaluating the implementation of foreign aid programs. The agency unifies the foreign aid program teams of the former Foreign Aid Department of the Ministry of Commerce and the Foreign Aid Coordination Team of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For internal coordination, the establishment of the NAID represents the further development of the original inter-ministerial coordination mechanism, which covers 23 ministries and commissions. As a deputy minister-level institution under the State Council, the National Agency can better coordinate and manage China’s foreign aid affairs, break through the “fragmented” foreign aid model, provide a robust institutional guarantee for China to formulate and implement foreign aid policies, and promote the protection of overseas interests.² Thus, the establishment of the National Agency can effectively address the embarrassing situation in which China’s former foreign aid management system was divided, with each agency having its own responsibilities, lacking central oversight and internal coordination (Hu and Huang 2018, 31).

The establishment of the National Agency has better facilitated the institutional development of China’s foreign aid management system. The “South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund” and “International Development Expertise Centre”, together with the International Poverty Reduction Centre of China, founded in 2010, and the China-UN Peace and Development Fund, founded in 2015, have all enriched dialogue between China and the recipient countries (Hu and Huang 2018, 32), thus safeguarding China’s overseas interests.

The National Agency aims to solve the complex structural problems by coordinating the Ministry of Commerce, of Foreign Affairs and of Finance related to the formulation of foreign aid policies and plans; more than 10 ministries, commissions and institutions, local provincial and municipal commercial departments, embassies and consulates abroad are combined, so as to improve efficiency, making comprehensive planning and effectively implementing the dual tasks of foreign aid and interest expansion (Miao 2018, 41). In fact, the BRI is the driving force for the birth of the National Agency. Foreign aid and investment can mutually promote one another, reflecting the overall planning mechanisms of different agencies.

Finally, China has consistently engaged with non-governmental sectors in inter-agency coordination and has incorporated them into China’s overseas interest protection mechanisms, albeit cautiously. In protecting its overseas interests, China has developed an ad hoc anti-COVID-19 cooperation platform that brings together the government, overseas Chinese associations, state-run and private enterprises, and other non-governmental sectors into an integrated mechanism for the protection of foreign expatriates. For example, the anti-COVID-19 Committee of the Philippine Chinese community disaster relief fund, jointly established by the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines and overseas Chinese associations in the Republic, has been expanded into an integral platform of Chinese expatriates (Wang and Yu 2022, 72).

Taking overseas social security as an example, in 2014, China unveiled the first batch of 18 “overseas Chinese mutual assistance Centres”, including the American, Canadian, and Brazilian Chinese Association, the Sydney Chinese Service, the China-Papua New Guinea Friendship Federation, the Philippine Chinese Business Federation, the Cambodian Chinese Cultural Development Foundation, the Myanmar Chinese Chamber of Commerce, All Japan Federation of Overseas Chinese, etc. In view of the increasing number of malignant cases involving Chinese nationals in South Africa, the Centre was established to improve the safety awareness and self-protection ability of overseas Chinese in South Africa. It is China’s first overseas government-non-government coordination mechanism for national protection in South Africa, designed to jointly address local public security issues with the police departments of the two countries and to cooperate with local police to crack down on crimes against overseas Chinese (Guo and Zheng 2020, 6).

Table 2
Horizontal governance and China’s institutional reforms for the protection of its overseas Interests

Institutions	Function	Time
Inter-agency Joint Meeting on Security Protection of Overseas Chinese Citizens and Institutions	formulating overseas security policies and measures, handling major consular incidents and the diplomatic settlement of expatriate-related crises	2004
The Consular Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs	protecting the personal and property safety of overseas Chinese	2006
The Consular Protection and Coordination Centre, Ministry of Foreign Affairs	The top priority of the consular emergency management	2007
China Consular Service Network, Ministry of Foreign Affairs	providing consular protection and service information for Chinese enterprises and legal persons abroad, issuing security reminders and offering consular help	2011
the National Security Council	The most authoritative entity that coordinates domestic and international agencies and integrates internal and external affairs	2013
the Emergency Centre for Consular Protection, the “12308” consular protection hotline, the Centre for Global Consular Protection and Service Emergency Call, Ministry of Foreign Affairs	improving the online consular services and providing foreign security information services for overseas Chinese citizens and enterprises	2014
Overseas Chinese Mutual Assistance Centres	An integrated mechanism for foreign expatriate protection by absorbing non-governmental sectors	2014
The National Agency for International Development	expanding the efficiency of China’s foreign aid as well as safeguarding China’s overseas interests through inter-agency integration	2018
Anti-COVID-19 Cooperation Platform	foreign government and non-government cooperative mechanism for expatriate protection	2020

• Summarised by the authors

Challenges to China’s “Vertical-Horizontal Model” in overseas interest protection

In the 21^st century, the pace of global economic recovery is sluggish, populism is rising, anti-China sentiment is surging, and the US-China strategic rivalry is escalating. All these factors have endangered China’s overseas interests. As a developing country, China’s legislative and institutional reforms are confronted with a new problem of heavy bureaucracy, and China’s “vertical-horizontal model” to protect its overseas interests is yet to be fully fledged.

First, in the face of U.S. and Western long-arm jurisdiction and sanctions, China is determined to enhance its industrial resilience, strengthen the protection of its overseas interests, and remain vigilant against U.S. decoupling in high-tech and global supply chains. China is likely to expedite the formulation of laws and regulations, such as the Overseas Interest Protection Law and the Overseas Security Regulations. However, these efforts may be a double-edged sword, aggravating self-decoupling, if not counterproductive.

Secondly, as a socialist country, China fully leverages its institutional advantage of “concentrating on major projects” to protect its overseas interests. Meanwhile, the balance between power concentration and marketisation is worthy of further exploration. The market-oriented operation mode of overseas interest protection, applied by the advanced economies, such as the US, might be worth Chinese reference. The private security contractors are a typical market-oriented way of overseas interest protection; China may encourage state-run or private enterprises to participate in consular protection. Concentration of power at home may reduce the effectiveness of consular protection abroad (Hu 2021, 75).

Third, China does not trust the NGOs in its overseas interest protection. Historically, the rise of great powers has often been accompanied by the expansion of their overseas interests. The supply of international public goods has dual effect; safeguarding overseas interests and engaging in global governance. It not only ensures China’s participation in global governance but also provides conditions for the maintenance of its overseas interests (Qi 2021, 22). According to statistics, the number of China’s international NGOs is only 45, accounting for only 0.08% of the total global international NGOs, and only a few NGOs such as China Association for Science and Technology, Soong Ching Ling Foundation and the Globalization Think Tank have obtained the special consultative qualification of the United Nations (Liu, He and Gao 2020, 74). The NGOs play an important role in information collection, community governance, and image-building, all of which are of great significance for safeguarding overseas interests. Unlike Western NGOs, Chinese NGOs are sometimes barred from engaging in volunteer work, limiting their ability to address deep-rooted grievances linked to Chinese investment, and they are too small to deliver services to a large population. This reflects the general limitations of overseas Chinese NGOs (Zou & Jones 2020, 108).

Finally, China’s means of safeguarding its overseas interests often become the ends of its interest protection as well. For example, to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden and maintain maritime safety from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, the Djibouti military base operated by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was commissioned in 2017, playing a role in deterrence, evacuation, and counter-piracy. However, when a Chinese warship docked at Djibouti port in 2017, a Japanese warship berthed at the adjacent wharf reportedly sent frogmen to spy on the Chinese (Huanqiu 2017). Thus, China’s overseas military installations and private security companies are also part of its overseas interests that require protection.

Conclusion

China’s overseas interest protection hinges on legislative and institutional reforms. It is a response made by the Chinese government to its expanding overseas interests and formidable threats. So far, China’s “vertical-horizontal model” in the protection of overseas interests is still at its trial stage. In particular, the efficacy of the “vertical-horizontal model” is dubious. Theoretically, every agency is responsible for overseas interest protection, but in fact, no one has the motivation to be responsible, and there may even be a phenomenon of “organised irresponsibility”, i.e. every agency’s business is nobody’s business. These laws and regulations can be bypassed, and parallel institutions can be set up by provincial-local units, etc., to operate otherwise based on their own specific bureaucratic and not national interests. The growing fascination with governance mechanisms as a solution to market and/or state failure should not lead us to overlook the risks involved in attempts to substitute governance for markets and/or hierarchies and the resulting likelihood of governance failure (Jessop 1998, 16). These are well-known in organisational/institutional studies, and, in the Chinese case, this tendency is captured by the metaphor of ‘playing parallel side-balls’. Due to bureaucratic red tape, China, like other developing countries, attempts to protect its fragile overseas interests through vertical and horizontal governance, but may find it’s still a long way to go at the operational level.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend their sincere thanks to the two blind reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions on the initial version; special thanks go to the China National Social Science Fund (23AGJ011).

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• 1
  The information is based on interviews with Chinese diplomats in Beijing in 2024, who requested to be anonymous.
• 2
  The information is based on interviews with Chinese retired officials of in Beijing in 2025, who requested to be anonymous.
• Data Availability Statement:
  The database that supports the findings of this study is openly available in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) at https://www.cnki.net/.

Edited by

• Associate Editor:
  Haroldo Ramanzini Junior (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7105-6237)
  Wilton Dias ( https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9623-0526).

• Scientific Editor:
  Haroldo Ramanzini Junior (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7105-6237)
  Wilton Dias (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9623-0526).

Data availability

The database that supports the findings of this study is openly available in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) at https://www.cnki.net/.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  20 Mar 2026
• Date of issue
  Feb 2026

History

• Received
  21 May 2025
• Accepted
  22 Dec 2025