China plans to train 5,000 soldiers from developing countries over next 5 years: Report

In order to boost its global security influence, China has revealed plans to train 5,000 security personnel from developing countries over the next five years, said a South China Morning Post report.

The latest announcement appeared in a paper on Beijing’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) published on Tuesday.

"Beijing plans to create more international platforms for exchange and cooperation to address security challenges in areas such as counterterrorism, cybersecurity, biosecurity and emerging technologies, with a view to improving governance capacity in non-traditional security," said the report quoting the GSI paper.


The paper further said that China would also encourage more exchanges and cooperation among university-level military and police academies.

"China was willing to provide 5,000 training opportunities for professionals from other developing countries over the next five years to help them address global security issues," the paper added.

The initiative is reportedly seen as an alternative to the Western-dominated security order. It was first proposed during the Boao Forum for Asia annual conference in April 2022 by President Xi Jinping.

In recent years China boosted its efforts to expand multilateral and bilateral security training programmes to countries in the Middle East, the Pacific Islands and Central Asia.

Recently, the Chinese balloon, which Beijing denies was a government spy vessel, spent a week flying over the United States and Canada before President Joe Biden ordered it to be shot down. The episode strained further ties between Washington and Beijing.