China is currently facing normalized and complex nontraditional security issues, greatly challenging the basic social order, people’s lives, property and living environment. As a consequence, “security governance”, which asserts public protection, mutual protection, other’s protection and self protection, is now showing a strong tendency to replace the traditional “security management” and “security control” and is therefore on the rise as an alternative “paradigm” to nontraditional security capacity building. With the purpose of enhancing the capacity of security governance, the developed countries have gradually built up the modern civil protection system, comprehensively encompassing the defense of air bomb, war, nuclear threats, disaster, terrorist attack, and social disorder. Since the opening up policy was launched, China has been searching for its own pathways to a modern civil protection system. Nevertheless, the Chinese civil protection system remains insufficient in terms of idea, law, institution, and international cooperation. In view of this, the present paper, with the fundamental goal of human security, proposes the design of a Chinese modern civil protection system which includes “civil protection in war”, “civil protection in disaster”, and “civil protection in daily life”. To fully realize the goals of China’s modern civil protection, this paper further puts forward the following suggestions. Firstly, the formulation of civil protection laws is necessary to provide standards and legal basis for the protection of human security. Secondly, an actionable civil-military commanding organization and state-civilian interactive response system are needed to make full use of the resources of military and societal actors. Thirdly, special military forces should be built up in response to war and major nontraditional security issues. Semi-military forces should be set up for regular nontraditional security management. In addition, an institutionalized cooperation system between the two types of forces is a must. Fourthly, the trust in and capacity reserve for the novel security concept, creative involvement and inclusive development should be enhanced for Chinese international cooperation to ensure the security of overseas Chinese and other peoples in the world. This paper is based on the fact that China is facing the interrelated challenge of traditional and nontraditional security issues and that China is responding to the urgent pressure of promoting the capacity of security governance. In a word, by comparing the civil protection system of China and those of developed countries, the paper tries to find out the insufficiencies of China’s civil protection, and to put forward new ideas of top design and application framework for improving the capacity of China’s security governance in the new era. China is currently facing normalized and complex nontraditional security issues, greatly challenging the basic social order, people’s lives, property and living environment. As a consequence, “security governance”, which asserts public protection, mutual protection, other’s protection and self protection, is now showing a strong tendency to replace the traditional “security management” and “security control” and is therefore on the rise as an alternative “paradigm” to nontraditional security capacity building. With the purpose of enhancing the capacity of security governance, the developed countries have gradually built up the modern civil protection system, comprehensively encompassing the defense of air bomb, war, nuclear threats, disaster, terrorist attack, and social disorder. Since the opening up policy was launched, China has been searching for its own pathways to a modern civil protection system. Nevertheless, the Chinese civil protection system remains insufficient in terms of idea, law, institution, and international cooperation. In view of this, the present paper, with the fundamental goal of human security, proposes the design of a Chinese modern civil protection system which includes “civil protection in war”, “civil protection in disaster”, and “civil protection in daily life”. To fully realize the goals of China’s modern civil protection, this paper further puts forward the following suggestions. Firstly, the formulation of civil protection laws is necessary to provide standards and legal basis for the protection of human security. Secondly, an actionable civil-military commanding organization and state-civilian interactive response system are needed to make full use of the resources of military and societal actors. Thirdly, special military forces should be built up in response to war and major nontraditional security issues. Semi-military forces should be set up for regular nontraditional security management. In addition, an institutionalized cooperation system between the two types of forces is a must. Fourthly, the trust in and capacity reserve for the novel security concept, creative involvement and inclusive development should be enhanced for Chinese international cooperation to ensure the security of overseas Chinese and other peoples in the world. This paper is based on the fact that China is facing the interrelated challenge of traditional and nontraditional security issues and that China is responding to the urgent pressure of promoting the capacity of security governance. In a word, by comparing the civil protection system of China and those of developed countries, the paper tries to find out the insufficiencies of China’s civil protection, and to put forward new ideas of top design and application framework for improving the capacity of China’s security governance in the new era. 
China is currently facing normalized and complex nontraditional security issues, greatly challenging the basic social order, people’s lives, property and living environment. As a consequence, “security governance”, which asserts public protection, mutual protection, other’s protection and self protection, is now showing a strong tendency to replace the traditional “security management” and “security control” and is therefore on the rise as an alternative “paradigm” to nontraditional security capacity building. With the purpose of enhancing the capacity of security governance, the developed countries have gradually built up the modern civil protection system, comprehensively encompassing the defense of air bomb, war, nuclear threats, disaster, terrorist attack, and social disorder. Since the opening up policy was launched, China has been searching for its own pathways to a modern civil protection system. Nevertheless, the Chinese civil protection system remains insufficient in terms of idea, law, institution, and international cooperation. In view of this, the present paper, with the fundamental goal of human security, proposes the design of a Chinese modern civil protection system which includes “civil protection in war”, “civil protection in disaster”, and “civil protection in daily life”. To fully realize the goals of China’s modern civil protection, this paper further puts forward the following suggestions. Firstly, the formulation of civil protection laws is necessary to provide standards and legal basis for the protection of human security. Secondly, an actionable civil-military commanding organization and state-civilian interactive response system are needed to make full use of the resources of military and societal actors. Thirdly, special military forces should be built up in response to war and major nontraditional security issues. Semi-military forces should be set up for regular nontraditional security management. In addition, an institutionalized cooperation system between the two types of forces is a must. Fourthly, the trust in and capacity reserve for the novel security concept, creative involvement and inclusive development should be enhanced for Chinese international cooperation to ensure the security of overseas Chinese and other peoples in the world. This paper is based on the fact that China is facing the interrelated challenge of traditional and nontraditional security issues and that China is responding to the urgent pressure of promoting the capacity of security governance. In a word, by comparing the civil protection system of China and those of developed countries, the paper tries to find out the insufficiencies of China’s civil protection, and to put forward new ideas of top design and application framework for improving the capacity of China’s security governance in the new era.