ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the political order of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and various aspects of its security concepts. These include a discussion of totalitarianism and post-totalitarianism, the conceptual development of national security and its performative power, and the PRC’s security-related bureaucracies and legislation. These provide the relevant context for the analytical chapters of the volume. This chapter shows how the conceptual evolution of national security is intimately connected to political theory and the transformation of the political order in the PRC.
