China’s Global Governance Initiative May Be More Talk Than Action

Few countries are as enamored with big-name foreign policy initiatives as China. On the heels of the 2020 Global Data Security Initiative, the 2021 Global Development Initiative, the 2022 Global Security Initiative, the 2023 Global AI Governance Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, China has just dropped its latest proposal for 2025: the Global Governance Initiative.

While previous generations of China’s foreign policy initiatives had names like “Exit,” “Harmonious World,” and “Belt and Road Initiative,” this latest focus on “global” initiatives seems to express a more concerted desire to shape this geopolitical moment for everyone. But whatever name China uses for these initiatives, their actual effects are difficult to define or measure.

Few countries are as enamored with big-name foreign policy initiatives as China. On the heels of the 2020 Global Data Security Initiative, the 2021 Global Development Initiative, the 2022 Global Security Initiative, the 2023 Global AI Governance Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, China has just dropped its latest proposal for 2025: the Global Governance Initiative.

While previous generations of China’s foreign policy initiatives had names like “Exit,” “Harmonious World,” and “Belt and Road Initiative,” this latest focus on “global” initiatives seems to express a more concerted desire to shape this geopolitical moment for everyone. But whatever name China uses for these initiatives, their actual effects are difficult to define or measure.

This is no less true of the Global Intellectual Property Initiative, which was announced at the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tianjin, China, on September 1. According to the Chinese government’s concept paper on the initiative, it aims to make international institutions “better at taking action, working effectively, adapting to changes, responding quickly and effectively to various global challenges, and serving the interests of all countries, especially developing countries.”

But despite the vague goals, it did not disappoint Chinese President Xi Jinping’s target audience. Central Asian leaders who participated in the SCO activities praised it, while some countries that were not present or even part of the group, such as Cuba and Nigeria, expressed their support for the initiative through local media.

But how does the Global Growth Initiative differ from global reform initiatives that other countries have taken before? What does China practically propose to its target audience?

So far, there seems to be very little answer. For example, Brazil used its G20 presidency in 2024 to promote a very similar agenda, focused on “deep reform” of global governance. Brasilia has prioritized the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and increased representation of the Global South in multilateral bodies, many issues that China now appears interested in addressing. Brazil’s efforts may have been the inspiration behind the GGI given the similarities.

But in contrast, China appears to be launching this initiative within an unspecified time frame and with less specific goals. Although the global initiative is focused in principle on reforming global institutions, Beijing has not yet identified the points of common interest that it hopes will succeed or even why China is the best country to have this conversation.

To be sure, some of the largest non-Western countries, such as Brazil, India, and Saudi Arabia, have long sought reform to permanent membership in the UN Security Council, even though China has blocked their proposals in the past.

Meanwhile, in the World Trade Organization, China and India have recently begun to stand alongside wealthier countries such as Japan, the United States and European countries to defend agricultural subsidies. This is a real problem for countries like Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali, which produce cotton for export but are unable to compete with the $700 million annually that the United States spent on cotton farmers between 2010 and 2019, not to mention the $41 billion in Chinese cotton subsidies during the same period.

This shift in the World Trade Organization represents a painful development for poor countries that have become more dependent on their agricultural sectors to generate income and employ workers, and may have hoped that China would behave differently from the richer countries that came before. Instead, these agricultural subsidies impose lower incomes and fewer export opportunities on some of the world’s most vulnerable farmers, and it is doubtful that the GGI will change this for the better when China’s domestic interests are so central to maintaining the status quo.

Indeed, even China’s focus on the WTO shows a clear interest in strengthening some of the pillars of the existing liberal international order that would now benefit China – a country that has achieved internationally competitive industries and is overly dependent on export markets for GDP growth. But it is not clear whether low-income countries with weaker industries support reviving the WTO system or whether they are hoping for something a little more seismic.

In other words, today’s China is not yesterday’s China. Although it often seeks to present itself as the leading voice of the Global South, the reality is that its economic successes, as well as its economic weaknesses, have pushed it toward policy positions that are necessarily at odds with many countries in that group. Even within academic circles, leading Chinese IR thinkers have come to view the world from a great-power perspective as distinct from scholars of the Global South who typically reflect the concerns of smaller states.

Alternatively, China may also want to use the initiative to highlight new developments at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank. But China is supposed to celebrate its achievements regardless of any new foreign policy initiative. It also seems ambitious to think that institutions like these are at the forefront of the minds of those demanding change when so many other multilateral development banks already exist.

Thus, the only thing that seems to unite China’s global target audience around the GSI at the moment is a shared sense of the need for reforms. But that doesn’t mean it’s weak.

The advantage that China has in launching many foreign policy initiatives is that it is easily able to ignore situations that countries may not support. For example, while the new Syrian government will likely avoid endorsing China’s GSI because of TIP fighters in its military establishment (considered a terrorist organization in China), it may feel more comfortable about endorsing the GSI as a non-aggressive principle.

In the future, China will likely claim geopolitical victories under its banner and use it as a forum to discuss desired changes whenever opportunities arise. When China brokered the re-establishment of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023, for example, Chinese media claimed this success under the banner of the Global Security Initiative. Although this was never a clear goal at the beginning of the initiative, it served as an ideal platform for claiming diplomatic success.

But more importantly, the GGI will be at its strongest when it is not specifically defined, because this creates space for everyone to believe that it can be a way to realize their unique hopes and dreams—even when those conflict with China’s goals in practice.