In mid-September, while many China watchers were focused on the Xiangshan Forum, the Chinese military’s annual high-level security and defense convening in Beijing, another major annual meeting was being held by the Ministry of Public Security in the Chinese city of Lianyungang (2-2-3). The Lianyungang Forum dates to 2015 but was upgraded and renamed the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum in 2022 following Xi Jinping’s launch of the Global Security Initiative. This year it was attended by 2,000 participants from 120 countries, regions and international organizations. The theme was “Shaping Global Public Security Together: United Action to Tackle Diverse Threats.” As Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong made clear in his opening speech, China is advancing an alternative to the western-led security order.

Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens is a leading expert on Beijing’s push to reshape the global security order and promote China as a model and global security provider to developing countries. Sheena is an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin where she directs UT’s Asia Policy Program and serves as editor-in-chief of the Texas National Security Review. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, and a visiting associate professor of research in Indo-Pacific security at the China Landpower Studies Center of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute. Relevant to this episode’s discussion, Sheena recently published a co-authored report for the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace Carnegie titled “A New World Cop.”

Timestamps:
[00:00] Start
[02:30] The Global Security Initiative and Xi Jinping’s Grand Strategy
[05:22] Outcomes of the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum
[08:50] What Do Participant Countries Gain?
[12:23] How Do Recipient Countries Use Chinese Technologies?
[16:12] Countries Rejecting China's Surveillance Technologies
[21:49] China’s Rewriting of Global Norms
[28:18] Potential Policy Responses to the GSI

Global Public Security with Chinese Characteristics

China Global