What China’s 2025 White Paper Says About Its Maritime Strategy

In May 2025, China’s State Council Information Office released a white paper titled "China’s National Security in the New Era." This marks the first official policy document on national security, defense, and geopolitical competition since the publication of China's National Defense in the New Era in July 2019. Issued amid “changes in the external environment and increasing internal risks and challenges,” the white paper reflects Beijing’s effort to recalibrate its national security strategy to both integrate domestic development priorities and respond to a rapidly evolving strategic landscape. It also seeks to “enhance international understanding of China’s national security approach” by clarifying its underlying principles and strategic intent.

The expanded scope of the 2025 white paper beyond military strategy distinguishes it markedly from the more narrowly focused 2019 version. But two differences in particular carry major significance for observers of China’s maritime strategy. First, it marks a significant shift in how China assesses the Asia-Pacific regional security environment. Second, it elevates maritime rights and interests from a tactical objective embedded within the defense apparatus to a central pillar of China’s broader modernization agenda.

A Less Stable Asia-Pacific

The 2025 white paper presents a multidimensional assessment of the Asia-Pacific security environment. The title of its first chapter, China Injects Certainty and Stability into a World of Rising Turbulence, explicitly highlights Beijing’s characterization of the current international landscape as “turbulent,” emphasizing that “the adverse effects brought by changes in the external environment are deepening.” The subsequent subsection, The World at a Historical Crossroads in an Era of Turbulence and Change, further underscores this assessment by stating explicitly that “economic globalization is facing headwinds.” It attributes this trend to the “rise of unilateralism and protectionism,” which are “undermining the normal functioning of the international multilateral trade system.” In response, China calls for closer cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries to “jointly maintain regional peace and development.” Rather than stressing its own stabilizing role in isolation, Beijing frames regional collaboration as the key source of stability, arguing that it can “inject reliable stability into a turbulent world.” This focus reflects China’s view of the Asia-Pacific as “an important engine of global economic prosperity,” where “deepening regional economic integration has contributed to building greater political mutual trust among regional countries.”

A close comparison of the 2019 and 2025 white papers reveals a rhetorical shift that signals a substantive reassessment of regional dynamics by Chinese authorities. The 2019 edition opens with a chapter titled International Security Situation, in which the Asia-Pacific is described as “generally stable,” reflecting a relatively optimistic view of the regional security environment. In contrast, the 2025 white paper includes an entire subsection under the first chapter titled Asia-Pacific Faces Severe Challenges in Maintaining Overall Stability, suggesting a more volatile landscape.

The 2025 document attributes growing instability in the Asia-Pacific to several interrelated factors, with particular emphasis on U.S. alliances and the proliferation of minilateral security groupings such as the Quad and AUKUS. Although the white paper does not name the United States or these arrangements explicitly, it blames "the expansion of military alliances", the formation of “exclusive small group” mechanisms, and "the intervention of extraterritorial forces" for exacerbating regional uncertainty and risking rekindling "unresolved legacies of the Cold War". According to the document, these same phenomena are also responsible for complicating "longstanding territorial and maritime rights disputes" in the region.

A Growing Focus on Maritime Rights and Interests

In the 2019 white paper, “maritime rights and interests” were categorized under the section on Fulfilling Missions and Tasks of China's Armed Forces in the New Era, alongside the “defense of territorial sovereignty.” This framing positioned maritime issues primarily as operational responsibilities at the theater command level. In contrast, the 2025 white paper places "maritime rights and interests" within Chapter Three, titled Providing Solid Support for Steady and Long-Term Progress in Chinese Modernization. This chapter outlines five strategic imperatives for China and positions national security as a foundational element in sustaining Chinese-style modernization and realizing the broader objective of national rejuvenation.

Notably, among the five strategic priorities outlined in this chapter, "safeguarding national territorial integrity and maritime rights and interests" is listed directly alongside core objectives such as "maintaining the Party’s ruling status and preserving the socialist system." This framing explicitly incorporates maritime issues into the core agenda and as a key pillar of the national security support system. It also marks a significant shift: whereas previous documents treated maritime issues as domain-specific challenges, the current white paper elevates them to a strategic priority on par with sovereignty and regime security. This shift reflects a fundamental reassessment of China’s approach to maritime affairs, away from a primarily tactical, rights-protection posture and toward a more strategic, governance-oriented framework. 

The latter portion of this Safeguarding National Territorial Integrity and Maritime Rights and Interests section also clearly illustrates the elevation of maritime issues, as evidenced by the white paper’s revised depiction of the situation in the South China Sea. In sharp contrast to the 2019 white paper, which framed the situation as “trending toward stability and improvement,” the 2025 document removes such optimistic assessments, reiterating China’s “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratly Islands and emphasizing safeguarding maritime rights and interests.

The 2019 white paper had already underscored the need to “defend key waters, islands, and reefs such as the South China Sea,” outlining measures such as “enhanced situational awareness” and “joint rights protection and law enforcement operations” in response to external threats and provocations. It also disclosed that, China had conducted “more than 4,600 maritime security patrol missions and over 72,000 law enforcement operations in defense of its maritime claims” since 2012. 

The 2025 white paper also introduces a new emphasis on China’s provision of public goods or regional services through its activities in the South China Sea. It positively cites China’s progress in the "the improvement of infrastructure on certain reefs and islands" and the offering of “public services in surrounding areas, including navigation, search and rescue, and meteorological forecasting." These statements not only reaffirm Beijing’s determination to uphold its maritime claims and resist external interference but also signal an intention to shoulder greater regional responsibilities and enhance its capacity to deliver public goods.

Conclusion

The new strategic perspectives displayed in the 2025 white paper are, in some cases, unsurprising. China’s assessment of increased instability in the Asia-Pacific has been seen repeatedly in public statements from Chinese officials, such as its strong reaction to the United States-led portrayal of a so-called "China threat" alongside Japan, Australia, and the Philippines during the 2025 Shangri-La Dialogue, which Beijing condemned as alliance politics reminiscent of "Cold War thinking" that undermine regional peace.

But the explicit integration of its “maritime rights and interests” within a framework of national modernization is deserving of deeper analysis. Compared to earlier views of the maritime domain primarily as a defensive frontier or strategic buffer zone, China now increasingly regards it as a critical extension of national governance and a vital space for strategic resources. The sea is no longer framed solely as a boundary of national defense but is instead being assigned a central role in both driving domestic modernization and enhancing regional influence. 

By positioning itself as both a “builder” and “service provider,” China is seeking to strengthen its influence and governance capacity on maritime issues, expanding its sustained presence and administrative reach in disputed waters. It remains to be seen whether this newly declared strategic framework is simply a more refined articulation of China’s existing approach toward maritime affairs or is a signal of new initiatives to come. 

Ziya Guo is a former research intern with the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.