China has no interest in being ‘world’s policeman’, ex-PLA colonel tells Europe

Chatham House workshop in London is told Europe has nothing to fear from Chinese military expansion

Zhou Bo’s visit to Britain is part of a gradual resumption of exchanges between Chinese, European and US think tanks

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Former PLA officer Zhou Bo, now a senior fellow at a Beijing-based think tank, says China is keen to see Europe avoid being trapped into taking sides between Beijing and Washington. Photo: Minnie Chan

Published: 6:00am, 17 Dec 2022Updated: 6:29am, 17 Dec 2022

A retired senior Chinese colonel has sought to ease European concerns over China’s expanding overseas military presence, telling a Chatham House workshop in London that Beijing has no interest in acting as a “world’s policeman”.

Nor would China demand that Europe take sides in the fierce competition between Beijing and Washington, said Zhou Bo, now a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy (CISS).

Zhou told experts from the independent international affairs think tank that the PLA’s goal is to build a strong army that would focus on overseas humanitarian operations.

“Even under the goal of building a strong military, China’s overseas operations would be humanitarian-focused, primarily in the form of non-war military operations, and not aimed at becoming a US-style world policeman,” he said.

Zhou’s remarks were in response to questions from experts at the workshop in late November relating to China’s Global Security Initiative, proposed by President Xi Jinping in April at the Boao Forum for Asia – a China-led equivalent to the Davos Forum.