How China’s Global Initiatives Aim to Change the Way the World is Run
Beijing’s new foreign policy concepts add up to a call for more emphasis on state rights over those of individuals.
Xi Jinping attends a news conference during the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Credit: Grigory Sysoev/Sputnik via AP Photos
In 2013, in a speech in Moscow, Xi Jinping floated the idea of mankind being a community of shared future or common destiny. In the decade that has followed, this phrase began to shift from being a description of the world’s interconnected nature to underpinning the idea of a more proactive foreign policy that aims to shape a favourable external environment for China.
Since 2021, however, with the launch of the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI) and the Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI), the concept of mankind being a community of common destiny has been fleshed out as Beijing’s key proposition to reform global governance. To achieve this objective, the Chinese leadership is seeking to bring about fundamental institutional and normative changes to global governance, in a way that would reassert the interests of the state over individual human rights.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi chaired the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friend
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