From Reactive Stability Maintenance to Intrusive Defense

1.1. Borderless Authoritarianism: Intrusive Defense as the Strategic Core of Political Security

China’s digital control system is widely perceived as an “inward-facing” authoritarian tool, primarily aimed at suppressing domestic dissent and maintaining social order. However, this perspective significantly underestimates the deeper strategic intent. After years of meticulous planning and construction, China’s censorship and surveillance systems have evolved beyond tools for internal stability — they now form an outward-facing, systematized, and intrusive political strategy. The goal is to establish a global political security buffer zone grounded in "politically compatible regimes" and a "friendly information ecosystem."

This strategy is not a passive spillover of domestic governance but a proactive and deliberate deployment rooted in the logic of regime security. Through globalized information control, institutional export, and ideological penetration, Beijing aims to preemptively detect, intervene in, and eliminate potential political security threats before they materialize — and to shape an international order that accommodates, adapts to, or aligns with its political logic.