Polycrisis through Peking
Moving from climate and consumption to polycrisis. Apologies, it is a long one. This note has been informed by discussions with colleagues from the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA), my thanks to them. Previous notes: one, two, three, four, five, six.
Reckoning with ‘the trap the world has become’, attempting to orientate thought, doing so by thinking through and with China. Separate from any normative concerns, this is acknowledging an empirical reality. It is useful to cite Ulrich Beck at the outset, as his work informs my thinking around polycrisis:
That is what ‘enforced cosmopolitanization’ means: global risks activate and connect actors across borders, who otherwise do not want to have anything to do with one another.
Immediately it is clear that talk of ‘de-risking’ is invariably misleading: it might be narrowly possible in specific domains, but not in any meaningful sense. Global risks are unevenly distributed and experienced, but ultimately, we are bound together in a shared ‘community of fate’, to quote Beck again. Insofar as China is central to the environment - energy - consumption nexus, its actions and choices will play a fundamental role in shaping our collective future. This is something all actors and analysts would benefit from acknowledging and reckoning with, as opposed to wallowing in the comfort of 20th century frames that no longer fit or function. On this, however, China is no further advanced than the United States when it comes to escaping the narcissism that afflicts great powers.
With that in mind, how to put polycrisis in conversation with China? The first step in doing so is recognising most of the work on systemic risk has a strong North Atlantic slant to it. While there is a ready appreciation of the regional and global interconnectedness of the problems we are facing, the perspective adopted and the people included are overwhelmingly based in Western Europe and North America, with some representatives from the Global South. This point is not just about China, it is applicable more broadly, especially in reference to the Asia Pacific, where approximately 60% of the world’s population can be found. Being based in East Asia, I am constantly dismayed with how distant it seems for those working in Western Europe and North America, perhaps the ‘far East’ is the correct term to be using after all. [ Anyone interested in engaging on these issues, feel free to get in touch: christopher.hobson@anu.edu.au ]
One consequence is the language and frames used tend to be those most comfortable in the North Atlantic. This is where including other perspectives would be instructive, as it poses the challenge of how to think about approaches that could be positive from a systemic risk perspective, but might not accord with liberal sensibilities. For instance, a network I am part of has co-developed a set of principles for systemic risk assessment and response, which includes a ‘justice principle’ that seeks to ‘incorporate the values of human rights, justice, and equity into systemic risk assessment and response and take into account the expertise of and particular risks experienced by vulnerable communities’. All well and good, but what to do with responses that are effective at addressing systemic risks, but are not considered just? What place for regimes that do not prioritise liberal conceptions of human rights, yet advance policies that do contribute to addressing collective problems? And if we cannot achieve a ‘just transition’, how to think about an unjust transition? For example, one plausible scenario is a militarised transition, in which geopolitics and climate fuse with technological competition. Renewables are favoured for energy security, digital technologies enhance capacities for control and surveillance, resilience is developed in the shadow of conflict. How to think about such possibilities?
In terms of work inside China on polycrisis: unfortunately, I cannot check Chinese language sources, but from what I have been able to ascertain from asking and looking around, it seems so far there is limited direct engagement wth the frame. Noting that, in Beijing in May 2024, there was a two day event, The International Symposium on Systemic Risk and Polycrisis Governance, hosted by the Beijing Normal University and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis. Looking at the program, it appears the general approach taken was a technical one building on expertise related to natural hazards. In such a formulation, polycrisis appears something on the horizon, with preparation potentially akin to an expanded version of the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction. This is a solid foundation, connecting with expertise in UNDRR and others working to build resilience, yet conceiving of polycrisis too narrowly undermines what the concept attempts to emphasise: the unboundedness and interconnected nature of risks.
At this point, it is helpful to reflect on how to understand polycrisis, a term that has already gone through a full lifecycle: proposed, adopted, spread, critiqued, institutionalised, pipiked. This Aeon piece provides a good overview, and in terms of academic work, the Cascade institute have been leading attempts to map out the terrain. When Tooze picked up polycrisis, he did so using his in medias res approach, with a consequence being that it was not too carefully theorised, often conveying more rhetorical punch than conceptual rigour. Meanwhile, the WEF adopting the term for its 2023 meeting in Davos helped to popularise it, without really doing much more. Polycrisis has been widely used in reports and conferences, reflecting that it is rather useful: its vagueness and grouping together of different issue areas makes it a great umbrella term. It provides an easy way of connecting together what would be otherwise disparate presentations at an event, it offers a bit of weight to a report title, some flair to a podcast. Nonetheless, the speed with which polycrisis has been taken up suggests something more, that it does capture something in the air, it does speak to this period of confusion and change.
Broadly, polycrisis is used at a global level to depict a collective predicament, it is also adopted to describe country specific or region level problem sets. For the latter usage, it works well to attract attention but is not analytically satisfying, often becoming a polite way of describing a massive shit-show. It is necessary to consider how different stresses interact within countries and regions, polycrisis seems more fitting for the global level. While I have offered my own understanding, it is easier to commence with the one provided by Michael Lawrence, Scott Janzwood, and Thomas Homer-Dixon from Cascade, as I expect this will emerge as the consensus definition:
A global polycrisis occurs when crises in multiple global systems become causally entangled in ways that significantly degrade humanity’s prospects. These interacting crises produce harms greater than the sum of those the crises would produce in isolation, were their host systems not so deeply interconnected.
In a more recent paper with a wider cast of co-authors, the following features are identified as common across different conceptions of polycrisis:
1. Emergent harms: when crises interact, their impacts are different from— and generally worse than—the impacts the crises would have had separately from one another.
2. Multiple causes: interacting crises are not reducible to single root causes; they arise from complex causal interactions that require multifaceted responses.
3. Deep uncertainty: crisis interactions generate change that strains comprehension and exceeds our ability to anticipate future developments.
4. Systemic context: crises arise within complex systems and, therefore, must be understood and addressed using complex systems thinking.
5. New knowledge and action: established frameworks, institutions, and practices are ill-equipped to address crisis interactions; new modes of research and practice are required.
And from there, most would suggest that we are either in a polycrisis now, or there is one fast approaching. How would such a prognosis sit with China? Xi Jinping and the CCP regularly speak of ‘great changes unseen in a century’, where do such judgements fit in relation to these dynamics? A polycrisis for some is a possibility for others? It might be tempting to think so, alas, the logic of enforced cosmopolitanism is we are bound together, there is no de-linking from this shared condition. Like an anchor tied to our legs, systemic risk portends us going down together. In noting this, however, we do not escape the politics of polycrisis, a theme that remains under-developed and too often avoided. Polycrisis cannot simply become a euphemistic way of registering discomfort with global politics changing in ways that entail the West mattering less. That is hard enough, but the challenges are so much greater.
Moving to thinking more directly about polycrisis risks in relation to China, the regional version of the concept can be briefly noted. If one considers China’s borders, countries in South Asia have been experiencing stress and upheaval. Pakistan has been described as facing a ‘polycrisis’, given the combination of political, economic, energy and environmental stresses it is facing. Yet whether this is the best description for what is occurring, as opposed to simply talking about it in terms of governance and state failure, is worth asking. The possibility for it manifesting into a regional situation is most present in relation to neighbouring Afghanistan, where Taliban misrule and extremist groups have the potential to merge together into a far more destabilising situation. There is civil war in Myanmar, and upheaval in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka remains under stress, borders with India are an ongoing source of tension. There definitely is scope for different downside risks in South Asia to interact and reinforce one another, with a toxic brew of economic failure, political weakness, energy shortages, climate shocks and increasing violent extremism having the potential to create considerable distress. While China would prefer to avoid such instability nearby, it is worth noting that these borders are with parts of China that tend to be securitised and at distance from economic centres. The likelihood of spillover would be low, but one can imagine a situation that would require greater attention and resources from China.
China is certainly aware of issues on its borders, one could not accuse the country of being lax in its thinking about possible dangers. This brings us to where it is easiest to find thinking in China about risk, where it is framed in reference to security. Since 2019, Xi has been clear about the need to guard against both more probable and less likely risks, warning:
We must keep our highest alert about ‘black swan’ [i.e., unforeseen] incidents and take steps to prevent ‘gray rhino’ [i.e., known risks that are ignored] incidents.
Xi has repeatedly invoked the pair of ‘black swan’ and ‘gray rhino’ to advocate for the need to be on guard for a wide range of possible risks that might interact. He notably referenced the concepts again in his report to China's 2022 party congress:
Our country has entered a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising. Various "black swan" and "gray rhino" events may occur at any time. We must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms.
It is interesting that no reference in this part of the report is made to the pandemic, which is not identified as an example of these tail risks manifesting. Regardless, the vision of the world painted is one of threat, and not without cause.
Xi’s thinking on risk has been further developed by Chen Yixin who took up the role of minister of state security in October 2022. Notably, in Shutdown, Tooze sympathetically builds on Chen when introducing the polycrisis frame, proposing that he identifies ‘convergence, linkage, induction, and amplification effects’ that are present in polycrisis conditions.
In a 2019 article, ‘Taking Strategic Initiative to Prevent and Defuse Major Risks’, Chen expands Xi’s thinking on ‘preventing and resolving major risks’:
The fact that the world is experiencing major changes not seen in the past 100 years is bound to bring about many uncertainties. Under these new circumstances, major risks are becoming more and more complex, presenting many new trends and characteristics.
The prose is rather clunky and not well suited to quoting, but reading carefully Chen shows a strong awareness how risks can connect and interact:
Fundamental rules of preventing and defusing major risks. Predicting risk is a precondition for preventing risk; certainty about the direction of risks is pivotal for taking strategic initiative. It is necessary to always keep an eye on trends, always consider the overall situation, scientifically forecast the direction in which the situation is moving and the hidden risks and challenges it contains. It is necessary to recognize all aspects of the trends of risk development and the mutual connections [among them], acutely grasp risk contagion, transformation, and linkage. It is necessary to pay attention to and guard against economic and financial risks turning into political and social risks; cyberspace risks brewing to become actual social risks; risks from external [foreign] struggles turning into internal [domestic] security and stability risks; hostile foreign forces exploiting domestic problems; prevent [these] chain reactions from occurring.
Chen identifies six major effects in the evolution of major risks:
Backflow: external risks being imported and becoming domestic risks.
Convergence: different hostile forces linking together and reinforcing each other.
Layering: problems from different sectors and groups overlapping and intersecting.
Linkage: ‘all categories of risk are becoming increasingly mobile, and the interconnectedness [among them] is strengthening.’
Magnifier: the role of the internet as source and amplifier of risks.
Induction: Problems in one region triggering imitation elsewhere.
Perhaps in the original Chinese the distinctions between the six effects is clearer, but there does appear to be overlap not only in the dynamics described, but also Chen’s characterisations. Regardless, what they do point towards is the loss of boundedness, the interconnections of risks, the reflexivity of threats. To these, Chen presents five tactics, focusing on: (1) stability, (2) the homefront, (3) early detection, (4) changing variables, (5) root causes. The article concludes with the injunction to engage in ‘new comprehensive warfare’: ‘We need to innovate and improve our thinking and action, coordinate our tactics and warfare, launch a precise offensive campaign, and protect national political security and overall social stability at full strength.’
What one finds in Chen’s article is an emphasis on how risks can interact and reinforce each other, but in reference to national security, understood in a more conventional manner in reference to China’s party-state. And from this, what is encouraged is a high level of vigilance and awareness, warning that risk can manifest and interact anywhere. The concern with the global is primarily in terms of the risks it poses for the national.
In April 2024, Chen published another article in the Chinese Communist Party’s main theoretical newspaper Qiushi reflecting on the ‘Overall National Security Outlook’, a concept first used by Xi Jinping in 2014. It is an approach that ‘calls for comprehensive advancement in all areas of security, coordinating the response to both traditional and non-traditional security challenges’, proposing a systemic approach to dealing with the range of challenges. Chen suggests that requirements to adopting the ‘Overall National Security Outlook’ include:
Controlling risks in all fields, effectively resolving risks in all areas of national security. We must firmly establish a comprehensive security concept, bring all risks that may affect national security into view, strengthen traditional security such as politics, economy, military, and territory, and also control non-traditional security risks such as biology, data, and artificial intelligence, preventing “black swan” and “grey rhino” events, achieving coordinated governance and common consolidation in all areas of security.
Using all means, making good use of various forces to maintain national security. Under the new circumstances, national security risks are manifold and varied, and the characteristics of instantaneity, hybridity, and amplification of various risks are more prominent. The backwash, confluence, superposition, linkage, magnification, and induction effects are more obvious. Only by comprehensively using all available means to prevent and deal with them can we achieve the best results.
This could perhaps be labelled as a ‘kitchen sink’ approach to security. Nonetheless, with the recognition of the way risks can interact and the emphasis on prevention, the thinking echoes how people tend to talk about systemic risks. Consider a research brief published by the UNDP on ‘Polycrisis and long-term thinking’, in which one of its recommendations being, ‘designing governance and risk frameworks optimized not only for future risk, but also future uncertainty’, explaining:
While strengthening resilience in the face of uncertainty is in part a function of incorporating more systematic consideration of long-term, future risk within ongoing policy or programmatic analyses, the risk lens to navigate the future is not a catch-all. Whereas a risk-driven approach to long-term thinking supports the formulation of actions on the basis of what might occur – that is, potential risks that can be hypothesized through known research, trends and signals of change – it is equally necessary to plan for unknown unknowns.
So how does the thinking offered by Chen differ from such injunctions from the international? In a recent article, Jonna Nyman describes the current Chinese approach as a ‘form of “hypersecuritization” where security discourse proliferates and the notions of threat and risk expand and extend to a point where anything, anywhere, at any time could be considered threatening.’ She identifies where such thinking can lead: ‘the logic of risk produces an ever-expanding list of threats, mirroring the speculative security culture centred on scripting disaster that emerged in post-9/11 Europe and the US.’ Indeed, this is evident in the language of the UNDP report above: the reference to ‘unknown unknowns’, a term that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used in 2002 when detailing the range of threats he saw after 9/11. Once again, difference blurs into similarity.
Circling back around to Beck: ‘risk means the anticipation of catastrophe. Risks exist in a permanent state of virtuality’. As soon as one is thinking int terms of risk, one enters the realm of possibility. How to avoid getting lost in these ‘what ifs’? And how to avoid acting in ways that might bring about the future one is seeking to avoid? The reflexivity of risk can also have a temporal dimension, with fears of the future leading to actions in the present that might hasten that very possibility. How to escape such traps?
It is good to stay with Beck as he offers a route to finishing what has become a lengthy and sketchy note. There is much work to be done on considering polycrisis in reference to China. Certainly in the thinking of Xi and Chen one can find a strong awareness of how risks can interact and reinforce one another, the reflexive and interconnected nature of threats. In this sense, there is a keen appreciation of the realities of enforced cosmopolitanism, yet insofar as there is the attempt to build resilience through self-reliance and developing a ‘fortress economy’, there is a simultaneous unwillingness to accept that binded-ness that comes with our globalised condition. On this, however, West and East, North and South, few seem comfortable reckoning with us being part of a shared community of fate, but that is what polycrisis thinking ultimately points towards. One of the conclusions from working on this note is a greater awareness of how polycrisis invariably necessitates a kind of cosmopolitanism, albeit not the easy globalism of the 1990s. It is all much more complicated and conflictual than that. Continuing those thoughts can be for another note, perhaps.