On January 19, 2023, the Center for International Security and Strategy of Tsinghua University (CISS) issued the report titled External Security Risks for China in 2023.

It is the mission of the think tank to stay on high alert against potential risks and explore possible solutions to challenges. The international system is currently undergoing the most dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War. The peaceful and open international environment, which has been taken for granted over the last four decades, is now overshadowed by formidable challenges. In this context, it is the think tank’s responsibility to explore and identify external security risks that might pose threats to China in the months and years ahead.

Since the beginning of 2021, CISS has, via the Delphi method and statistical analysis techniques for social sciences, explored and identified external security risks that are expected to pose the greatest challenges to China in the coming year based on qualitative research and quantitative analysis and delivered the 2023 risk outlook. A total of 41 Chinese scholars specializing in international relations and representatives of governmental departments, enterprises, and the media participated in this year’s research at the invitation of the CISS. Through several rounds of questionnaire surveys and calculations, the research group drew some conclusions.

The report External Security Risks for China in 2023 proposes ten major external security risks: the strategic rivalry between China and the United States, the tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the security of the Belt and Road Initiative partner countries, the nuclear missile crisis in Northeast Asia, the fierce competition over global supply chain, the mutation of COVID-19, the slowdown in global economy, “black gold,” the Ukraine crisis, and the dilemma in China-EU relations.