China’s Security Forum: Peace Rhetoric Masking a CCP-Led World Order
Udumbara
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China’s Xiangshan Forum showcases Beijing’s rhetoric of peace while serving as a platform to expand the influence of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), court the Global South, and advance the regime’s goal of replacing the U.S.-led international order with a Beijing-led alternative.
The 12th Beijing Xiangshan Forum was held from Sept. 17 to Sept. 19 at the Beijing International Convention Center under the theme, “Upholding International Order and Promoting Peaceful Development Together.” The program featured plenary sessions, breakout panels, a high-level dialogue, exchanges between Chinese and foreign experts, and a seminar for young military officers and scholars. Special events emphasized China’s role in U.N. peacekeeping operations and the PLA Navy’s humanitarian medical missions.
The event drew about 1,800 delegates from more than 100 countries and organizations, including ministers, military chiefs, and senior officials from the United Nations, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and International Committee of the Red Cross. Other attendees came from developing countries, with the Global South formally included on the plenary agenda for the first time.
Defense leaders from Vietnam, Singapore, Russia, France, Nigeria, and Brazil took part, with Singaporean Defense Minister Chan Chun Sing delivering a speech. By contrast, the United States sent only its defense attaché, and most Western countries were represented at lower levels, highlighting minimal Western engagement.
According to Chinese state media, the forum was presented as a platform to promote global peace, cooperation, and so-called shared security. Senior Chinese officials used the event to argue that the PLA’s growing strength represents stability rather than a threat. Yet the forum came only weeks after Beijing staged a grand military parade. In his opening speech, Defense Minister Dong Jun underscored this contradiction, reaffirming the CCP’s intent to seize Taiwan and declaring that its “restoration” to China is “an integral part of the post-war international order.”
Gen. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, urged participants to strengthen dialogue, defend common interests, and support China’s vision of global governance. At the welcome dinner, he said that the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) “points the way forward and provides strategic guidance for reforming and improving the global governance system.”
The GGI is the fourth major framework proposed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which complements the other initiatives on global development, global security, and global civilization. Announced on Sept. 1 at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus meeting in Tianjin, the GGI was promoted with familiar CCP rhetoric about a fairer international order, a “community with a shared future for humanity,” and advancing developing nations’ interests. In reality, these initiatives are stepping stones toward a CCP-led world order that sidelines the United States.
The Xiangshan Forum allows China to project leadership, challenge U.S.-backed security structures in the Asia-Pacific, and expand its influence in the Global South. By presenting itself as the champion of developing nations, Beijing claims to be working toward a “community of shared destiny” while steadily eroding U.S. influence in the rules-based order.
Instead of relying solely on military power projection, the GSI extends into counterterrorism, cybersecurity, biosecurity, emerging technologies, and international policing. China has exported surveillance technology, trained foreign officers, and even conducted joint patrols abroad—moves that protect its overseas interests and spread CCP security norms. These efforts also provide Beijing with political leverage, intelligence access, and surveillance opportunities.
Partner countries, particularly in the Global South, are drawn to Chinese technology because it is affordable, supposedly effective, and often supported by loans. While Western governments warn of risks, some states have used these systems to suppress dissent, reinforcing Beijing’s narrative of a declining West and portraying China as a neutral, constructive security provider.
Through the Xiangshan Forum and related initiatives, Beijing builds new venues to rival existing institutions, framing them as more inclusive and equitable. In practice, they serve to shape agendas in the CCP’s favor, expand China’s global influence, and weaken Western leadership—all under the CCP’s banner of cooperation and a “new era” of governance.
The West, and especially the United States, must act decisively to slow the Chinese regime’s influence and expansion ambitions before the CCP’s alternative order becomes the new global reality.
