Whatever our jobs or social positions, most of us are struggling to make a living. Yet life seems to be getting harder rather than easier. Why?
By Bi Yantao Published on September 1, 2026
One reason may lie far beyond our daily lives: the world is increasingly being governed by the logic of security.
For decades, globalization was built on a simple idea: countries could become more prosperous by trading, investing, sharing technology, exchanging knowledge, and allowing people to move across borders. Interdependence created risks, but it also created efficiency, opportunity, and cooperation.
That logic is changing.
Supply chains, semiconductors, data, artificial intelligence, energy, finance, investment, infrastructure, scientific research, and even international exchanges are increasingly being viewed through the lens of national security.
Many of these risks are real. The problem is not that governments take security seriously. The deeper problem is that the definition of security is expanding into almost every area of social and economic life.
When trade, investment, technology cooperation all become security issues, and even the movement of people and information becomes a security concern, normal international interaction becomes increasingly difficult.
The question is no longer simply, “What is actually dangerous?”
It becomes: “What could potentially become dangerous?”
That shift matters.
I: From managing interdependence to reducing it
Globalization has never meant that countries could eliminate risk. Its basic principle was to accept a certain degree of interdependence in exchange for greater overall benefits.
Today, however, an increasing number of governments are asking a different question: If dependence can be exploited, should we reduce it?
This marks a fundamental shift—from managing interdependence to reducing interdependence; from making use of globalization to protecting ourselves from globalization.
Some degree of de-risking is understandable. But when every country follows the same logic, the combined result may be very different from what any individual country intended.
II: The real danger: a security spiral
Consider technology.
One country restricts technology exports because it fears strategic dependence. The other country responds by accelerating technological self-reliance. The first country then interprets this as evidence that the other is becoming a greater strategic competitor, and imposes further restrictions.
The cycle continues.
The original goal was to reduce risk. The result may be more mistrust, more restrictions, less cooperation, and greater fragmentation.
This is a security dilemma—but one that is no longer confined to the military sphere.
A similar pattern is emerging in trade, investment, technology, supply chains, data, and scientific cooperation:
Rising risk perceptions → securitization → more restrictions → less interdependence → greater mistrust → even higher risk perceptions.
The paradox is clear: measures intended to make countries safer may gradually make the international system less stable.
III: From efficiency competition to security competition
This transformation is already changing the global economy.
Companies once chose suppliers primarily according to price, quality, efficiency, and reliability. Increasingly, they must also ask whether a supplier carries geopolitical risk.
Investment decisions face similar questions: Could sanctions affect this market? Could technology controls disrupt operations? Can data cross borders? Could political relations suddenly change?
As a result, the most efficient supplier may no longer be the preferred supplier. The most competitive location may no longer be the safest location.
Globalization is therefore moving from a system designed primarily around economic efficiency toward one increasingly constrained by geopolitical security.
The cost will ultimately be paid by businesses and consumers through higher prices, duplicated production capacity, reduced innovation, and fewer choices.
IV: The overlooked cost: human connections
The most serious consequences may not be economic.
International students, researchers, journalists, entrepreneurs, artists, tourists, and civil society organizations are not merely moving people and resources across borders. They also create understanding.
Human contact can reduce uncertainty and correct stereotypes. Academic cooperation can build trust. Business relationships can create long-term mutual interests.
If these interactions are increasingly treated as potential security risks, the world loses more than economic opportunities. It loses some of the mechanisms through which people understand one another.
And once mutual understanding disappears, rebuilding it can be extremely difficult.
V: Can a more secure world become a less safe world?
Suppose every country believes it is simply protecting itself.
One restricts technology. Another reshapes its supply chains. Another limits foreign investment. Another tightens data controls. Another reduces international research cooperation.
Each decision may appear reasonable on its own. But taken together, they can produce a world with less trade, less investment, less technological cooperation, less mobility, less information, and less trust.
Would such a world necessarily be safer? Not necessarily.
When countries have fewer connections and less information about one another, uncertainty and misperception can increase. The very relationships that once helped manage risks may disappear.
This creates a profound paradox: To reduce the risks created by interdependence, we reduce interdependence—and in doing so, we may lose one of the most important mechanisms for managing those risks.
The answer is not to abandon security.
The real question is: What genuinely needs to be securitized—and what can be managed through rules, transparency, regulation, standards, contracts, risk assessment, and cooperation?
A mature approach to security requires boundaries.
Some technologies, infrastructures, data, and activities clearly require strong protection. But not every uncertainty should automatically become a national security issue.
If everything becomes a security issue, security itself loses its boundaries. And security without boundaries can become a generalized logic of restriction.
The future of globalization therefore should not be about eliminating interdependence. It should be about making interdependence more resilient:
Interdependence without excessive vulnerability. Openness with reasonable boundaries. Competition without eliminating cooperation. Risk management without securitizing everything.
The world does not need a system in which everyone tries to become completely independent.
It needs a system in which countries can remain connected without becoming dangerously vulnerable to one another.
Otherwise, we may face the greatest paradox of all: In trying to make the world safer, we may create a world in which everyone has less trust, less cooperation, less openness—and ultimately less security.
Bi Yantao is a Professor at the School of International Communication and Arts, Hainan University. His research focuses on international communication, international conflict and peace. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the position of his institution.
