A newly adopted version of China’s national defense law has included “threats to development interests” as a reason for defense mobilization, sparking concern among foreign observers.

The amended law was approved on Saturday during a session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and will come into effect on the first day of 2021.

Article 47 of the law states that when China’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, security and development interests are under threat, the country can conduct nationwide or local defense mobilization.

It was the first time that “development interests” was included in the law, and the term was mentioned four times across a total of 73 articles.

Chinese defense minister Wei Fenghe said that the amendments were necessary as the threats and challenges facing China have become “multifaceted and complex” since the law was first implemented in 1997.

Separately, political scientist Francis Fukuyama said that the West is engaged in a “long fight” with China but will not necessarily lose.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the difference between China and Western countries, and has shifted the center of the global economy towards East Asia, Fukuyama said in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro.

China presents a threat to the West even greater than the former Soviet Union, but its advantages might not last, Fukuyama said, noting that China might face internal problems like mass unemployment.

Fukuyama is best known for his 1992 book “The End of History and the Last Man” which argued that liberal democracies and free-market capitalism would become a global norm after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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