China's annual international security gathering in Beijing is the first since the start of US President Donald Trump's second term. The event is part of Beijing's bid to bolster its recent power projection efforts in "upholding international order."

The Xiangshan Forum, which runs from September 17-19, is widely regarded as China's answer to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier annual security gathering in Singapore, typically attended by minister-level officials from Western countries, including the United States and its allies.

"The US prefers Shangri-La Dialogue; China prefers Xiangshan [Forum]," said Raymond Kuo, a senior political scientist specializing in East Asia at the US think tank RAND. "They're expressing those particular preferences through the types of people that they send."

The United States' representative at the Xiangshan Forum is the defense attache from its Beijing embassy, a lower-level delegate after the Trump administration sent a deputy assistant secretary of defense last year. In June, Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun skipped the Shangri-La Dialogue, the first time since 2019 that Beijing's defense chief has been absent from the summit.

Kuo told DW that there's a bit of "forum shopping" going on, with China "trying to create its own sort of separate system and get countries to go to that."

He added that the level of government officials the US and China chooses to send to these forums "tells you how much [those] other countries might care about" amid the increasing competition between the world's two largest economies.

China's recent push for an alternative global order

Around 1,800 representatives from 100 countries, including officials, military personnel and scholars, are attending this year's security forum in Beijing, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.

Key topics listed on the official agenda include "global security governance, Asia-Pacific security cooperation, safeguarding the post-war international order, and regional peace-building."

These narratives echo China's recent power-projection efforts at back-to-back global events hosted on its home turf, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit and a grand military parade earlier this month.

At the SCO summit two weeks ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi before later hosting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the military parade. A similar display of security cooperation between China and its key alliances was widely expected at the Xiangshan forum.

"Xi will highlight unity with Russia, North Korea, and possibly Iran to try to convey a sense that there is a united front able to counter US global influence," Elizabeth Freund Larus, an adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Council, told DW.

Targeting Global South and taking India as an example

Beijing's narrative of a new international order is primarily aimed at countries from the Global South, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Brazil and Nigeria. These countries are sending relatively higher-ranking defense representatives to the forum.

Kuo, the RAND political scientist, said China's Xi had been projecting the country as "an honest broker" for the Global South and attempted to present its relations with India as an example.

Despite a yearslong standoff between India and China triggered by deadly border clashes in 2020, Modi's meeting with Xi earlier this month at the SCO conference could be favorable for Beijing.

"To some extent, China is already saying: 'yes, we may have our differences, we may even have actual territorial conflicts, but we can still … handle, manage, and solve regional security issues [better] than the United States," Kuo told DW.

However, while China emphasizes its support for multilateralism as an alternative international order, analysts say it still prefers bilateral agreements with countries from the Global South.

Kuo told DW that China might announce the launch of an initiative or provide further details on proposals made at the SCO summit, but concrete agreements are unlikely to materialize.

The US-China power play in Asia

The Xiangshan Forum also offers a glimpse into how the US and China might approach military diplomacy in the future.

Analyst Larus told DW that the choice of the US representative "indicates that the real discussions are happening through back channels and not in front of the cameras."

In the lead-up to the forum, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke with Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun on the phone. Both sides emphasized the importance of keeping military communication channels open and reaffirmed their key national interests.

During the call, Dong warned that "containment or deterrence against China will not succeed" and cautioned against US interference in the South China Sea and Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its own.

Hegseth, meanwhile, stressed that the US "does not seek conflict with China" but underscored that  has "vital interests in the Asia-Pacific."

"If there is to be bilateral dialogue with Beijing, Washington sees no need to step into China's arena to conduct those discussions," said Ying-Yu Lin, an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

Last week, China's newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, was spotted transiting through the Taiwan Strait and heading to the South China Sea, which Beijing claims is "part of a research and training exercise."

In the meantime, the US and Japan have been conducting joint military drills, including the deployment of the Typhon mid-range missile system in Japan — a move criticized by China and Russia for escalating regional military tensions.

Analysts expect Beijing to continue using such forums to promote its peace narrative on issues ranging from the Ukraine war to the South China Sea and Taiwan.

"This is the same line that Chinese officials have been using," Larus told DW. "Do not expect any breakthroughs here."

Edited by: Keith Walker