The 13th Beijing Xiangshan Forum held its opening events on September 16, drawing more than 2,000 delegates from nearly 100 countries, regions and international organizations, including more than 60 officials at ministerial or military chief-of-staff level and above — the largest turnout in the forum's history. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, and the gathering was held under the theme "Build Consensus on Stability, Advance Security Governance Together." Among the day's plenary and breakout sessions, remarks from a United Nations official drew particular attention: he warned that the current international situation is the most unstable since the end of World War II, and that the international system is under unprecedented strain.

The Beijing Xiangshan Forum was established in 2006 by the China Association for Military Science, originally as a "Track II" academic dialogue platform focused on Asia-Pacific security issues. Beginning with its fifth session in 2014, it was upgraded to "Track 1.5" dialogue status, dramatically expanding its scale and the scope of issues it covers, and gradually developing into one of the most representative high-level defence and security dialogue platforms in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. It now draws defence ministers or senior military officials from Asia-Pacific states, representatives of major powers from outside the region, officials from international organizations, retired military and political figures, and prominent scholars, with a stated purpose summarized as building trust, dispelling doubts, forging consensus and advancing cooperation. It is against this backdrop of two decades of accumulated standing that this year's forum being able to accommodate both a UN official's open warning and the simultaneous appearance of Russian, Iranian and US representatives carries particular weight.

The warning came from Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations. Speaking at the forum on September 16, he said the international system was under severe strain and that the UN urgently needed to adapt its tools and approaches to today's realities. Lacroix also acknowledged that the UN's financial situation was a growing concern among member states, saying that amid deep cuts to US funding for peacekeeping, the organization could not be expected to deliver the same results with steadily fewer resources, reduced mobility and a shrinking field presence. He added that the UN could count on China's continued support — a remark widely read as an acknowledgment of Beijing's role in the multilateral system at a moment when Washington is tightening its financial commitments to the UN.

One of the most closely watched aspects of this year's forum was the rare simultaneous presence of representatives from Russia, Iran and the United States. The US delegation was led by Cynthia "Xanthi" Carras, the Pentagon's principal director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia affairs — a director-level rather than ministerial-level official, though Washington's decision to send a delegation at all carried symbolic weight given the continued strain in China-US relations and limited military-to-military trust. Russia's delegation was led by State Secretary and Deputy Defense Minister Anna Tsivilyova, who told the forum that China-Russia relations stood at an unprecedentedly high level, noting that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination and the 25th anniversary of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, and said the two sides were deepening comprehensive cooperation, including in the military field, on the basis of equality and mutual respect. Iran's delegation also attended, and Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi held talks in Beijing the same week with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, underscoring Tehran's active diplomatic presence during the forum.

Bringing together representatives from states as divergent — and at times openly adversarial — as Russia, Iran and the United States has long been seen as the defining feature that sets the Beijing Xiangshan Forum apart from other international security dialogues. In contrast to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, historically dominated by Western countries and particularly the United States, the Xiangshan Forum is widely regarded abroad as China's answer to that platform, built around the idea of "equal-footing dialogue" — allowing all participants, regardless of size or power, to exchange views candidly on both differences and common ground in the same room. This year's forum featured four plenary sessions and eight parallel breakout sessions, covering topics including the international order and strategic stability, pathways out of regional conflicts, security challenges in the Asia-Pacific, and the military applications of emerging technologies. Sensitive issues such as the Ukraine crisis and the situation in the Middle East were addressed in closed-door sessions, allowing participants to speak more candidly. Notably, the forum has increasingly been described as a hybrid of "South-South" and "South-North" cooperation — drawing large numbers of developing-country participants while still retaining a meaningful Western presence; earlier tallies put European and American scholars at roughly one-third of all foreign scholars attending, suggesting the platform has not become an echo chamber confined to a single geopolitical camp.

International observers broadly view the forum's continued expansion as evidence that China is seeking to fill what some countries see as a power vacuum left by uncertainty over Washington's global role. Think-tank analysis has described the Xiangshan Forum as an increasingly important tool for Beijing to build soft power, reshape narratives around the international order, and use defence diplomacy to knit together a network of like-minded states. As more countries dissatisfied with the existing international order look toward Beijing, the rhetoric on display at the forum has grown bolder than in previous years. Chinese officials and state media, for their part, have framed the forum's greatest value as "openness and inclusiveness" — bringing parties in conflict, or even outright hostility, to the same table — describing this as the quality that most distinguishes it from other security conferences.

Viewed more broadly, Lacroix's assessment that the world is at its most unstable since World War II echoes an earlier warning this year from another UN official, Jorge Moreira da Silva, Executive Director of the UN Office for Project Services, who said in March that the world is currently experiencing its most violent period since World War II. Together, the two statements reflect a broader sense of alarm within the international community about the severity of the current security environment. From the continued grinding stalemate in Ukraine, to unresolved multi-front tensions in the Middle East, to Washington's retrenchment in funding for UN peacekeeping and other multilateral institutions, the signs all point toward an increasingly fragmented and unpredictable international environment. Against that backdrop, the mere existence of a forum capable of hosting face-to-face dialogue among opposing powers such as Russia, Iran and the United States carries significance beyond its formal agenda.

Proceedings at this year's forum are set to continue through September 17, with further closed-door consultations on regional security flashpoints expected among participants. Analysts note that while the Xiangshan Forum is unlikely to substantively resolve concrete disputes such as the Russia-Ukraine war or the crises in the Middle East in the near term, its value as one of the few communication channels that remains open among major powers is becoming increasingly apparent at a time when mutual trust across the international system is in short supply.