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In this analysis
China's preferred language for global security is increasingly polished: multipolarity, cooperation, shared development and resistance to bloc confrontation. The difficulty is that several of its neighbours hear those words while watching military pressure closer to home.
What happened
Reuters reported that China's Xiangshan Forum is opening amid tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and uncertainty about US commitments in Asia.
The argument
A state cannot build a convincing alternative security order through rhetoric alone. Regional leadership depends on whether smaller countries believe rules will constrain the strong as well as the weak.
The strongest counterargument
US alliances and military deployments also shape regional insecurity, and Beijing can reasonably argue that an Asian security system permanently centred on American primacy is not neutral.
What happens next
The strongest signal from the forum will be whether Chinese officials address concrete mechanisms for crisis management rather than simply contrasting multipolarity with US-led alliances.
Editorial note
This article separates sourced reporting from analysis. The factual record is linked below; judgments and conclusions are State & Power's editorial analysis.