This was a show of power and leadership regarding the ‘Global South’ that aimed to send a message of strength and confidence to the ‘Global North’.  But mostly the 11th annual Beijing Xiangshan Forum (BXF) was about putting President Xi Jinping’s framework for reshaping global governance onto the main stage. If it were the US, you might say, ready for prime time.

The Beijing Xiangshan Forum is described as the largest security conference in Asia and this year it focused on Beijing’s mutually reinforcing effort to reshape world order and lead Global South. Without a doubt, the BXF, hosted by China’s Academic of Military Sciences and the China Institute for International Strategic Studies puts China’s agenda front and center and this year that agenda focused on a Shared Community and the initiatives that differentiate China from the US on the global stage.

It was my fifth time speaking at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum and the changes were palpable, but certain themes persist.  China’s all-encompassing focus on the US remains. At the end of the day, most of China’s international relations and diplomatic affairs come back to its concerns, fears and needs regarding the world’s Superpower, the U.S. But this year, the criticisms were notably muted, both in the choice of plenum speakers (all from the Global South), and the session theme titles such the one where I spoke –“The Right Way for China and the United States to Get Along”.  Perhaps this conciliatory tone was due to China’s ongoing weak economic indicators.  Or perhaps it was a sign of China feeling more self-assured about its increasingly central place in the world. This year’s BXF highlighted a key shift: the U.S. is no longer the undisputed heavyweight champion it once was, as the challenger gains momentum, both in popularity and influence.

No fewer than 93 official national delegations and attendees from approximately 100 countries participated in this year’s top security conference of China. All those who spoke at the plenum sessions sang China’s praises, reinforcing its leadership role on the world stage and its towering status with the so called, Global South. The support shown at the Forum focused heavily on China’s differing approach from the U.S. regarding global affairs. That approach is defined by a number of concept statements made some years ago by President Xi that have been infused with meaning by China’s elite – scholars, academics and officials. By featuring two of these concepts at this year’s BXF – the Community with a Shared Destiny and the Global Security Initiative – and including language from the other two, the Global Development Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative, we can understand that Beijing’s framework for change has matured to the point of becoming active policies ready to be implemented.

This year’s forum title says it all, Promoting Peace for a Shared Future. ‘Promoting peace’ can be seen as referencing China’s five foreign policy principles (listed below) that set it apart from what Beijing calls ‘bloc politics’ and what its top diplomat, Wang Yi, has said is part of a set of alliances that “seeks to maintain the U.S.-led system of hegemony.” China does not like Washington’s ability to build mini-lateral groups of like-minded countries pursuing their shared interests such as the Quad – US, Australia, Japan and India, or AUKUS, the US, UK and Australia.

The second part of the Forum title features ‘Shared Future’, bringing to the fore Xi’s concept that the world is a Community with a shared destiny for Mankind.  Since being introduced in 2013, the ‘vision’ as it is sometimes referenced, has been written into the Constitution of the Communist Party of China and the Constitution of the country as well as of multilateral mechanisms, including the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Chinese news outlets report that it has increasingly become an international consensus. What that implies is less clear. According to a report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, “building a human community with a shared future isthe way forward for all the world’s peoples.”  President Xi has said that China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI) , the Global Security Initiative (GSI) and the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) aim to reshape global governance through inclusivity. Reportedly, over 60 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the GDI. The GSI is described as advocating an “indivisible security” community where no country should pursue its own security at the expense of another country. The GSI was embedded into the Saudi-Iran reproachment agreement brokered by Beijing and was announced by Wang Yi to become the security architecture for the Middle East. According to recent reports, the GSI aims to “create a new path to security that features dialogue over confrontation, partnership over alliance and win-win over zero-sum” regarding conflict zones. This brings to mind Sudan, Yemen, Gaza and Ukraine and begs the question, how? How will the GIS resolve these conflicts?

The initiative at the heart of the Shared Community, the GSI and the GDI as well as the Belt and Road Initiative, is the Global Civilization Initiative. It calls for respect for diversity of civilizations, advocating the common values of humanity, with those values yet to be defined. The GCI is described as highly valuing the inheritance and innovation of civilizations, and jointly advocating robust international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation. And how should that cooperation be conducted? Through diplomacy with Chinese characteristics – namely through the five foreign policy principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity; mutual non-aggression; mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; equality and mutual benefit; and peaceful coexistence.

The Community with a shared destiny as well as the three global initiatives all began as statements by the leadership. As a show of strength and leadership, the conference did what China does best – impress. While the content and the speakers from China generally conveyed greater confidence, there were clear signs that China is not fully sure of its evolving role. For example, in one session, an African diplomat was asked if China is justified as the leader of the Global South. This was a surprising question at an event that treated its own leadership of the Global South as a given. What was absolutely clear from this conference was that China will continue to advance its indigenous diplomatic and international relations framework in a variety of ways including embedding aspects of it into as many international agreements and statements as possible. Beijing will continue to challenge U.S. leadership and that of the
West. And the tools it will employ to reach its goals will be unfamiliar to many Western countries. At the same time, the conference conveyed that China watches and listens. So there is still room for the US to up its game and engage the international community and China in ways that promote an improved version of the current order.