http//: www.thenewslark.com
Dr. Syed Mehboob
Senior Research Editor
The News Lark, political and economic analyst
China is a global leader in peace and development. Its three-thousand-year history tells us that it never believed in aggression, invasion, or colonialism; rather, it always promoted international trade and cooperation, creating win-win situations. Chinese President Xi Jinping is a global visionary leader who believes in multilateralism and is promoting a multipolar world based on equality and justice. President Xi’s proposed four initiatives are an attempt to persuade and motivate global opinion to pave the way for a new world order based on justice and to end oppression, aggression, and colonialism.
I am going to write a series of articles to highlight President Xi’s four initiatives and their need and importance for a new global world order based on multipolarity, justice, and equality.
To shape a new international order and guide global cooperation, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed four major global initiatives:
- Global Development Initiative (GDI): It was proposed in September 2021, four years ago. It focuses on sustainable development, poverty alleviation, food security, the digital economy, green transition, and South-South cooperation to accelerate the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda.
- Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) : It was proposed in March 2023, two and years before. It stressed and emphasized respect for diversity of civilizations, the shared values of humanity ( such as peace, equity, and justice), cultural continuity, and people-to-people exchange without ideological confrontation.
- Global Governance Initiative (GGI): It was proposed in September 2025,a year before. It proposes a more just and equitable international governance system, sovereign equality, multilateralism, and reform of global financial, economic, and technological (Artificial Intelligence and cyberspace) institutions.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Secretary General and the President of the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Xi Jinping, has established four initiatives to align the international order with its preferences: the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative. Using these initiatives as ‘pillars’, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) aims to challenge the unipolar world, hegemony, international injustice, and inequality. . This includes expanding its influence in forums such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, and establishing alternatives such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS.
The People’s Republic of China advocates for greater influence for developing countries – referred to by the CCP as the ‘Global South’ – and positions itself as a member of the ‘Global South family’. In doing so, it aims to align developing countries with its vision for a reshaped international order.
In June 2026, the State Council Information Office (SCIO) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced that in autumn that year, the PRC would host an inaugural Global Governance Forum to discuss reforming and improving global governance.
Over the past five years, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CCP, has introduced and expanded upon the architecture of ‘a community with a shared future for mankind’ and its four supporting pillars. These four initiatives, as mentioned before, have been given much importance by developing countries and received a warm welcome because every developing nation wants to get rid of a unipolar world based on inequality and injustice.
Xi considers reworking the international order and global governance an essential prerequisite for achieving the PRC’s ‘Second Centennial Goal’, namely, by the centenary of the establishment of the PRC in 2049, becoming ‘a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful’ – in short, to become the leading global power. With some justification, the CCP sees the system established after the Second World War as benefiting the interests of, and aligning with the values of, the United States (US) and its allies. Without this changing, achieving the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ – a slogan encompassing the intent of the ‘Second Centennial Goal’ – will not be possible.
The intention is not to replace the United Nations (UN) and other global institutions, but to refashion them. By canvassing the support of developing countries – often referred to by the CCP as the ‘Global South’– the PRC is working to set up new regional and global organizations and groupings more closely aligned with its own interests and values. It also aims to have a major say in drawing up international regulations and norms in new areas, such as space, the polar regions, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The border between alignment and control is sometimes unclear.
The CCP continues to refine ‘Xi Jinping thought on foreign relations’. The overarching concept is to ‘build a community with a shared future for mankind’. Initially, this concept was supported by three pillars, which, starting in 2022, emerged at the rate of one a year: the GDI, the GSI, and the GCI. Liu Jianchao, then Head of the International Department of the CCP made this clear in 2023:
From the perspective of historical logic, the ‘three major global initiatives’ are closely related to the three major themes of the progress of human society, and together constitute the ‘three pillars’ of the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in September 2025, Xi announced a fourth pillar: the GGI. He has also talked of the Global Artificial Intelligence Governance Initiative (GAIGI), At the BRICS summit on 12th-13th September 2026, Xi announced that ‘China will be a pioneer in establishing a BRICS AI open-source community.’ He also proposed the ‘BRICS initiative of AI-empowered new industrialisation’. It would not be surprising if Xi were to announce a Global Technology Initiative in the future.
Together, ‘the four major global initiatives are organically unified and mutually reinforcing, collectively constituting important strategic measures for promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.’
In Moscow (March 2013), in New York (September 2015 at the UN), and in Geneva (January 2017 at the UN). Wang Yi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PRC and Politburo member, set out its developed form in November 2025, listing six constituents:
- Advocating a multipolar world of equality, order, and economic globalisation, which is universally beneficial and inclusive;
- Deepening integration of development with neighbouring countries and safeguarding regional peace and stability;
- Maintaining overall stability in major actor relations (e.g., with Russia, the US, Europe, and emerging nations);
- Deepening solidarity and cooperation with developing countries;
- Implementing the four ‘global initiatives’;
- Promoting the building of a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, and cleanness and beauty (i.e., environmental issues).
According to the SCIO in September 2023, the fundamental aim of the GDI is to accelerate the implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Xi told the ‘BRICS+’ leaders’ dialogue in Kazan in October 2024:
“We should play an active and leading role in the global economic governance reform, and make development the core of international economic and trade agenda.”
( Continued)
