Existential Risk: China ticks two boxes out of four
By John Gittings | 03 November 2025
As the two principal carbon emitting powers move in opposite directions over environmental policy, China’s pledges on combatting climate change look all the more impressive, in spite of criticism that they should go further. The contrast was particularly marked at the UN General Assembly in September 2025 when Xi Jinping promised to cut Chinese emissions by 7-10 percent by 2035 and said that China would “strive to do better”. The very next day, Donald Trump told the Assembly that climate change was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.
Beyond official statements that may be viewed with some caution, significant progress is being made on the ground. To take a not always visible but vital example, Chinese logistics are now directed by official policy to become greener, with a shift from air to rail freight, the use of electric vehicles for ground transport, and the fuelling of container ships by methanol. (This is usefully explored in the new book by Paul Clifford and Christopher Logan). On AI issues, another challenging area for long-term policy, there is mounting evidence of an exponential shift in Chinese attention, as noted recently. ‘A growing number of research papers, public statements, and government documents suggest that China is treating AI safety as an increasingly urgent concern, one worthy of significant technical investment and potential regulatory interventions.’
So China appears increasingly focused on two of the four stand-out existential risks (ER) that have become the focus of attention. As identified in the 2025 Doomsday Clock issued by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), the main drivers of “the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe” are the dangers of the climate crisis, the threat of a nuclear weapons disaster, the devastation of a deadly pandemic, and out-of-control artificial intelligence.
To tick two out of the four ER boxes is quite impressive. However, the question I have been looking at – and have set out in a previous blog – is to what extent China, beyond the pursuit of specific targets that can be altered or relaxed, may have a unified and long-term perception of ER and the inter-relationship between the specific risks (which could have a multiplying effect). Further, to the extent that there is such a perception, how far is the Chinese state willing to share what must be a rather gloomy prognosis with the general Chinese public.
The term “existential risk” is usually rendered as shengcun fengxian 生存风险. Its use is mostly limited to translations or summaries of foreign ER research, and these have been infrequent. An extended review of Toby Ord’s The Precipice, published in the Jingji guanchabao (Economic Observer, 15.4.22), stands out, and the annual Doomsday Clock reports attract regular coverage. But to gauge China’s perception of long-term ER we need to look at material and ideas generated within China, not relayed from foreign sources.
To do so, I have focused on the set of lengthy government statements and of speeches by Xi Jinping, and their elaboration in official documents and media commentary, which began in 2019. These include a White Paper on China and the World (2019), three Global Initiatives on Development, Security, and Civilisation (2021 and 2023) and a Proposal for a Global Community of Shared Future (2023). As its title suggests, the last document, issued by the State Council, is the most interesting for our purpose. The preface begins with this paragraph:
IIn the universe there is only one Earth, the shared home of humanity. Unfortunately, this planet on which we rely for our subsistence is facing immense and unprecedented crises, both known and unknown, both foreseeable and unforeseeable. Whether human civilization can survive these has become an existential issue that must be squarely faced. More and more people have come to the realization that rather than amassing material wealth, the most pressing task is to find a guiding beacon for the sustainable development of human civilization, because we all care about our future.
The official English version quoted here is not an exact translation, and the adjective translated as “existential” (xianshi 现实) has the more limited meaning in Chinese of “actual” or “realistic”. However, this is a striking statement which fully conveys the sense that the world faces a challenge to its future of existential proportions, calling into question “whether human civilization can survive”. It is hard to discover a comparable policy statement from any other major power giving such stark picture of our future prospects, although there is an expanding field of academic ER research which may feed into some governments’ policies in a limited way.
In the main body of the document, there is equally bleak language on the peace deficit. “The shadow of the arms race lingers on, and the threat of nuclear war – the Sword of Damocles that hangs over humanity – remains.” The crisis in governance is said to be responsible for a failure to adequately tackle the climate crisis, while the Covid-19 pandemic also shows that the global governance system “keeps breaking down on issues requiring resolution”. All countries should work together and “the new era calls for new ideas”.
However, it is generally difficult to find “new ideas” that go beyond already familiar Chinese policies and exhortations. The greatest emphasis is placed on the climate crisis, where Xi Jinping’s call for “green and low-carbon development” to make the world a “clean and beautiful place” is echoed. The lack of detail is most evident in the document’s treatment of the nuclear weapons threat. It calls for “beating the swords of war into the plough-shares of peace” but proposes no new steps, merely restating familiar Chinese positions on adoption of the no-first-use policy, and the admirable but vague goal of “the complete prohibition and destruction of nuclear weapons”. There are no proposals on issues such as arms limitation agreements, reduction of nuclear arsenals, international inspection, or new nuclear-free zones, that might be considered serious “new ideas”.
Strikingly, subsequent commentaries on the 2023 document have rarely reflected the broad thrust of its opening statement about the “immense and unprecedented crises” faced by the world, nor have they picked up issues such as the nuclear Sword of Damocles. Instead, they have mostly focused on more familiar concepts already expressed in previous statements by Xi, on a community of nations working together in the spirit of true multipolarity, on the need to oppose hegemonic power, on the benefits of China’s cultural heritage and on the Belt and Road initiative. In an essay from the Qiushi Journal, the only specific world threat mentioned was “the great harm [that] is being done by the hegemonic, high-handed, and bullying acts of those who use strength to intimidate the weak, take from others through force and subterfuge, and play zero-sum games.”
I have made a survey of the contents during 2024 of six leading foreign affairs journals (these journals were usefully listed by Shaun Breslin and Ren Xiao in their study of academic discourse on Chinese international relations research), and found only a small number of articles that addressed to a limited extent the global crisis set out in the Global Community document of the previous year. The Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi (World Economics and Politics) journal from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences published a special number on “A turbulent world and national security (动荡世界与国家安全)”. Its contents focussed on the “national security discipline” required for China as a great power to defend its integrity and borders, but a final essay briefly addressed “global threats and challenges” that required a global response: these included climate change, terrorism, transnational crime, pandemics, and refugee issues.
However, we may note the growing popularity in Chinese academic circles of the study of the theories of “big history”, “global history” and “global symbiosis”, all of which move away from the China-centred emphasis of the international relations and world politics to examine broader historical and current themes. The Shanghai scholar Xia Liping is a prominent exponent in this field, arguing that “No single country can solve these problems alone, and cooperation is needed to address these challenges”. Perhaps it is within the field of global studies that more systematic work on ER will begin to emerge in Chinese scholarship.
My survey here would not be complete without recognizing the efforts of individual environmental campaigners and Chinese NGOs including the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs and Friends of Nature. They do, of course, keep a wary eye not to cross political red lines – it is safer to challenge local policy than to query it at the national level — and the atmosphere is less permissive now than in the first 2000s decade.
The 1997 UNESCO Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations towards Future Generations, and many subsequent UN documents, state insistently that it is the responsibility of all member states to place the interests of future generations at the heart of national and international policy. May we hope that China, which prides itself on its “major-country” role in diplomacy, will develop further the broad view of the existential risks to our future that were set out in the 2023 Global Community document, and work with other nations for more effective long-term global action?
John Gittings is a Research Associate at the SOAS China Institute. He was foreign leader-writer and East Asia editor at The Guardian for many years, retiring in 2003, and covered major events in the area from the late 1970s onwards. His books include The Changing Face of China (2005), China Through the Sliding Door (1999), Real China (1996), Superpowers in Collision (with Noam Chomsky and Jonathan Steele (1982), The World and China (1974), and The Role of the Chinese Army (1966). In retirement he has worked on peace history, publishing The Glorious Art of Peace (OUP, 2012 & 2018).
His current research project is into China’s perception of existential risk, particularly in the areas of pandemic, climate change and nuclear weapons.
The views expressed on this blog are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of the SOAS China Institute.
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