Chinese peacekeepers march at a medal parade ceremony in Hanniyah village, southern Lebanon, July 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Zongya)

Academics worldwide believe the China-proposed Global Security Initiative (GSI) for common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security is crucial to addressing regional and global security challenges aggravated by unilateralism and confrontations.

SINGAPORE, June 2 (Xinhua) -- The 20th Shangri-La Dialogue is to be held here from Friday to Sunday, with a focus on identifying challenges and exploring solutions to security across the Asia-Pacific region.

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Academics worldwide believe the China-proposed Global Security Initiative (GSI) for common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security is crucial to addressing regional and global security challenges aggravated by unilateralism and confrontations.

They say the Shangri-La Dialogue serves as a platform for promoting communications, mutual understanding and inclusive development, while rejecting the attempts by certain powers to stir up divisions and disputes in the region.

GLOBAL SECURITY INITIATIVE

Seven plenary sessions, two ministerial round-table meetings and six simultaneous special sessions will be held during the three-day dialogue, with the participation of nearly 600 delegates from over 40 countries and regions.

To people"s much attention, Chinese State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu will deliver a speech focused on "China"s new security initiative" at a plenary session on Sunday.

"Li"s debut attendance and elaboration on China-proposed GSI is widely anticipated as the top news under the spotlight at the event amid the doubling down of the West"s smearing efforts against the new security architecture," Ong Tee Keat, chairman of Malaysia-based think tank the Center for New Inclusive Asia, told Xinhua.

"GSI"s call for a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security where no country can strengthen its own security at the expense of others is a breath of fresh air in the contemporary global security dominated by unilateral sanctions, long-arm jurisdiction and antagonistic military pacts," said Ong, noting that China"s recent success in brokering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a triumph for the GSI.

The GSI represents China"s commitment to upholding multilateralism and building a community with a shared future for humanity, said Anna Malindog-Uy, vice president of the Manila-based think tank Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute.

"It will work to address the intertwined and interconnected traditional and non-traditional security issues and concerns that Asia as a region is facing," Malindog-Uy stressed.

Ophthalmologist Dong Lili (2nd R), a member of the 32nd Chinese Medical Team to Zanzibar, prepares to perform an operation with her local colleagues at the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital in Tanzania"s Zanzibar, Feb. 23, 2023. (Xinhua/Dong Jianghui)

MULTILATERAL COOPERATION

Through the meeting, analysts are also looking to find new insights into how multilateral cooperation can alleviate Asia-Pacific security challenges in turbulent times.

"Upholding multilateralism and promoting inclusive development in the Asia Pacific region is important, for this is the way forward in an emerging multipolar world," said Malindog-Uy.

To uphold multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific means to promote cooperation and pursue inclusive development in a regional order, where countries are treated on an equal footing and decision-making is anchored on consensus-building through dialogue and negotiation, said the Philippine expert.

ASEAN members and other Asia-Pacific countries should work with China to restore global confidence in multilateralism and build an open and diversified world economy, said Kin Phea, director-general of the International Relations Institute of Cambodia.

REJECTION OF U.S. STRATEGY

Moreover, academics have cautioned that the United States may incite confrontations in the Asia-Pacific region by peddling its so-called "Indo-Pacific Strategy" at the security meeting in Singapore.

The so-called "Indo-Pacific Strategy" forces ASEAN members to choose between the United States and China, but ASEAN and its member states aspire to see the two major countries play complementary roles and construct mechanisms for development, prosperity, peace, stability, harmony and inclusiveness that leave no one behind within the region and globally, said Phea.

"In its attempt to counter the peaceful rise of China, the U.S. pushes forward the "Indo-Pacific Strategy." It also risks fomenting divisions among ASEAN countries, jeopardizes ASEAN centrality, and makes Southeast Asia a geopolitical battleground," Malindog-Uy told Xinhua, adding that the U.S. "Indo-Pacific Strategy" has found little support in Southeast Asian capitals.

"Peace and development are the most valuable international public goods amid accelerating momentous changes. Major countries are required to effectively shoulder their international responsibilities openly and inclusively to maintain the hard-won peace and development, instead of instigating disputes and confrontation," said senior colonel Zhang Chi, an associate professor at the National Defense University of China.