By Wang Yusi and Wang Xinjuan
BEIJING, Dec. 2 -- The Beijing Xiangshan Forum video workshops kicked off at Beijing Xiangshan Yihe Hotel on December 1.
Themed on “Enhancing International Cooperation: Responding to New International Security Challenges”, this year’s forum invited 32 world-renowned experts from 12 countries to analyzed the world trend, predicted security risks, and discussed countermeasures and ways of cooperation.
According to Senior Colonel Zhao Xiaozhuo, a senior fellow from the PLA Academy of Military Sciences, this year’s workshops had two highlights. First, it was held via video link. Second, it was attended by a number of prestigious experts, including Ezra F. Vogel, a retired Professor Emeritus of Harvard University, and Joseph Nye, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under the US Department of Defense.
The forum consisted of two panels on December 1. The first panel was chaired by Yao Yunzhu, a retired major general and a senior advisor to the China Association of Military Science, and those in attendance also includes 7 Chinese and foreign experts, including Ezra F. Vogel, former Director of Harvard’s East Asian Research Center, and Noboru Yamaguchi, vice president of the National Defense Academy of Japan, exchanged their views on security situation in the Asia-Pacific. The second was chaired by Huang Renwei, Executive Director-General of Institute for Belt and Road & Global Governance (BRGG), Fudan University, at which 7 Chinese and foreign experts, including Evgeny P. Buzhinskiy, chairman of the Russia's PIR Center, and Dr. Karin von Hippel, Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) of Britain, discussed global strategic stability in the future.
2020 is an unusual year when the COVID-19 outbreak rages across the world and has brought new challenges to the security situation in the Asia-Pacific. The experts and scholars expressed their views on topics of common concerns. Dr. Niklas Swanström, Director of the Institute for Security and Development Policy and one of its co-founders, noted that the pandemic has brought new challenges to Asia-Pacific countries and may escalate the conflicts between different political systems. Noboru Yamaguchi, vice president and professor of the National Defense Academy of Japan, urged all countries to draw lessons from history and join hands in fighting the virus.
Beijing Xiangshan Forum has been held for nine consecutive years since its foundation. Due to this year’s COVID-19 pandemic, the 10th Beijing Xiangshan Forum originally scheduled within the year was postponed, and the organizers set up offline venues in China to achieve offline and online linkage.
