China's new national security committee to blend domestic, foreign duties A Chinese para-military police standing guard beside the Great Hall of the People after the Communist Party Central Committee concluded its secretive Third Plenum in Beijing. Beijing: China's new national security committee will apparently differ from the National Security Council in Washington, on which it is modelled, in one crucial aspect: The Chinese version will have dual duties with responsibility over domestic security as well as foreign policy, Chinese experts say. That means the new body will deal with cybersecurity, relations with Tibet and unrest in Xinjiang province, where a restive Uighur population feels increasingly pressed by the ethnic Han majority, said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing and an occasional adviser to the government. "In China, the security question is largely domestic: cyber, Xinjiang and Tibet," Mr Shi said. The focus will be on foreign policy with a considerable domestic component that will call for the Public Security Bureau to participate on the committee when it discusses matters of internal security, he said. The communiqué at the end of the Communist Party conference on Tuesday announced the formation of two new agencies: the national security committee that had been contemplated by previous Chinese presidents, and a party leadership group on economic policy. The decision by President Xi Jinping to push ahead with the national security committee drew special attention because although two of his predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, had contemplated forming such a coordinating policy group, bureaucratic resistance, particularly from the military, had prevented its creation, the experts said. Over the years, Chinese officials have asked their US counterparts about the workings of the National Security Council, established after World War II by President Harry S. Truman, to advise presidents on national security and foreign policy and to coordinate policies among government agencies. In the United States, the president is chairman of the National Security Council, and the regular attendees include the vice president and the secretaries of state, defence and the Treasury. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the military adviser to the council, and the director of national intelligence is the intelligence adviser. It seemed clear from the Chinese announcement that Mr Xi will head the new Chinese agency and that his position at the helm would serve to increase his already firm grasp on power, said Zhao Kejin, an associate professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who is an expert on China's diplomacy. The precise membership of the new committee was not specified in the statement. It may take some months and considerable political jockeying before the exact composition of the new body is defined, Mr Shi said. Another obvious difference between the US model and the new Chinese agency is the dominant role of the Communist Party in China. "The Standing Committee will still be king for all important things," said Mr Shi, referring to the seven men, including Mr Xi, who are decisionmakers of the Politburo. At Sunnylands, the California estate where President Barack Obama and Mr Xi met for a two-day summit in June, an official in Mr Xi's entourage asked an US official about how the National Security Council was staffed, according to a US official who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. "I know of specific inquiries key Chinese officials were making as recently as a month ago about how the US NSC has evolved," said Ken Lieberthal, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was a staff member of the National Security Council during the Clinton presidency. My understanding was that this was on behalf of the highest levels of the leadership. The Chinese version of the National Security Council would likely borrow elements from the Department of Homeland Security, the US agency created after the September 2001 attacks to manage terrorism threats within the United States, said Xie Yue, a professor of political science at Tongji University in Shanghai who is an expert on Chinese domestic security policy. "Now China and other countries are paying increasing attention to anti-terrorism, and China doesn't have an established body to coordinate or lead here," said Mr Xie, who has followed the debate within the Chinese government about establishing a security committee. The twin concerns of the new committee show that making a distinction between domestic and foreign affairs is a thing of the past, said Mr Zhao, the Tsinghua professor. "We believe security is not only traditional security, not only territory and borders, but also means climate change, financial reform and terrorism," Mr Zhao said. The need for the new agency became imperative, he said, as China's wealth and its involvement with the world rapidly expanded, particularly since it joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001. "There is a need for a stronger institution to coordinate all facets of China's global role," he said. Twenty years ago, the party could deal with all these things. Now it is impossible for the party to deal with it all. Mr Zhao said Mr Xi would dominate the new national security committee and would add the title to his already three major responsibilities: general secretary of the Communist Party, head of the People's Liberation Army and head of state. "The establishment of the new body will strengthen the power of the president," he said. Who will serve as China's equivalent of the US national security adviser is a tantalising question, Chinese experts said. The current adviser to Obama is Susan E. Rice, who served as ambassador to the United Nations and was a foreign policy adviser to Mr Obama in his 2008 campaign. National security advisers have ranged from the highly visible Henry A. Kissinger, whom the Chinese often cite for his role in opening relations between the United States and China, to the more publicly reticent, like Thomas E. Donilon, who recently stepped down from the post. The front-runner for the senior staff job on the Chinese agency is considered to be Wang Huning, 58, who is a member of the Politburo, the director of the policy research office of the Communist Party and a close adviser on domestic and foreign policy to three Chinese presidents: Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin and now Xi. Mr Wang is unusual in the Chinese policy firmament because his expertise covers US politics and Chinese domestic concerns as well as foreign policy, a portfolio of interests that would seem to coincide with the mandate of the new national security committee. "His skills span both foreign and domestic policy and his membership in the Politburo gives him more political clout than anyone in the formal foreign policy system has," said Mr Lieberthal. In the late 1990s, he wrote an essay that called for greater separation of government and industry, a period when such ideas were less discussed than now. Before joining government, he served as a professor of international politics and as dean of the law school at Fudan University in Shanghai. Mr Wang, a behind-the-scenes operative who eschews public speeches, was at Mr Xi's side at Sunnylands and has served as a close adviser on his trips to Russia, Central America, Africa and Southeast Asia. In the protocol ranking on a recent visit to Kazakhstan, Mr Wang sat as the chief of the delegation, ahead of Yang Jiechi, the state councillor, and Wang Yi, the foreign minister. He appeared to oversee the smallest details like approving the text of an article about Mr Xi's speech at a university. Mr Wang's name was at the top of the list as contender for the ranking staff job at the new national security committee, said Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University. "But I've heard he is not interested to take this post," Mr Jin said.