China to train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to create ‘fairer’ world order | China

China will train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to ensure the world order “develops in a fairer, more reasonable and more efficient direction,” the public security minister said.

“We will also send police consultants to countries in need to provide training to help them improve their law enforcement capabilities quickly and effectively,” Minister Wang Xiaohong told an annual global security forum.

Wang Xiaohong made the announcement Monday in the eastern city of Lianyungang, in the presence of police representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol.

The forum is part of ongoing efforts by China’s ruling Communist Party to position itself as a global security leader. In 2022, China’s leader Xi Jinping launched the Global Security Initiative (GSI), which places China at the center as a facilitator to “improve global security governance … and promote lasting peace.”

Some human rights groups have raised concerns that recent training programs for African police officers are introducing Communist Party-style authoritarian tactics and are heavily focused on protecting Chinese commercial interests in those countries. This is often linked to China’s state-owned foreign investment program, the Belt and Road Initiative.

Public records of Monday’s speech did not provide details about which officers or countries would receive the training, or where the training would take place.

Beijing has linked the GSI to its brokering of deals between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the development of its peace proposal for the war in Ukraine. Analysts see it as a means to reshape the current US-dominated global order.

The GSI concept appears to encompass a range of bilateral security and policing arrangements made in recent years with developing countries, particularly in Africa and the Indo-Pacific region.

Last year, Beijing said the GSI aimed to promote greater cooperation between military and police academies at the tertiary level and was “willing to provide 5,000 training opportunities to other developing countries over the next five years to train professionals to tackle global security challenges”.

Monday’s announcement shows the numbers are growing. Wang noted that China has trained 2,700 foreign law enforcement officers in the past year.

Last week, Beijing announced after a China-Africa forum that it would train 1,000 additional police officers for the African continent “and jointly ensure the safety of cooperation projects and personnel.” It was not immediately clear whether the 1,000 officers were among the 3,000 Wang mentioned on Monday.

On Tuesday, Wang addressed the China-Central Asia Summit on Public Security and met senior officials from the five countries present. He said they had agreed to strengthen ties, including efforts to “deepen cooperation in law enforcement and security”, and to “focus on the vision of universal security and enhance the capacity of joint operations against terrorism and transnational crime”.

In July, East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta visited Beijing and signed a new partnership agreement with Xi, which aims, among other things, to “enhance exchanges at all levels between the military and police forces, strengthen cooperation in areas such as personnel training, equipment technology, holding joint exercises and training, police affairs and law enforcement”.

In 2022, an agreement with the Solomon Islands to strengthen cooperation with China on “law enforcement and security matters” raised concerns among the US and other Western allies, including other Pacific countries. In the aftermath of the Solomons agreement, then-Foreign Minister Wang Yi attempted to broker a regional deal with about a dozen Pacific nations but was rebuffed.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.