Prof. Zhidas Daskalovski Photo: PROVIDED TO CSST

In recent years China, under President Xi Jinping’s governance philosophy, has significantly improved its international position and status.

The idea that science can aid the policy making process has merit. The decision-makings of a country’s top leader do determine the future of a country and scientific and democratic governance is key for a country’s progress. 

China is reimagining the world as a single complex network of supply chains and trade arteries.

Fueled by commodities from around the world, the country is becoming the keystone of the global economy and the principal engine of globalization. 

Promoting global development

The Global Development Initiative (GDI), proposed by President Xi Jinping at the General Debate of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2021, resonates with the 2030 Agenda.

Within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), over 150 countries and organizations that makeup roughly 70 percent of the global population and over 50 percent of global GDP participate. Within BRI, China focuses on making free trade agreements (FTAs) with other nations and building special economic zones. Overall, BRI has the potential to meet long-standing developing countries’ needs and spur global economic growth. 

The launch of the GDI does not suggest China is replacing or diminishing the BRI. The BRI and the GDI are best seen as parallel tracks. While the BRI is economic growth-oriented, the GDI is development-oriented. The BRI delivers hardware and economic corridors, while the GDI focuses on software, livelihoods, knowledge transfer and capacity building. The BRI is market oriented, where enterprises play a key role. By contrast, the GDI is public oriented, delivering grants and development assistance. While the BRI’s pathways are mostly bilateral and regional, involving Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with partner countries, the GDI promotes diverse partnerships with multilaterals, NGOs and the private sector.

Fostering global security

During the annual Boao Forum, on April 21, 2022, President Xi Jinping proposed a Global Security Initiative (GSI) to “uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the building of national security on the basis of insecurity in other countries.”

The GSI affirms the central role of the United Nations (UN) in addressing conflict, promoting the “harmonization and positive relationship” between major countries, including opposition to “hegemonic actions.” 

Furthermore, it encourages dialogue to “cool hotspots” and “release the pressure from crises,” while addressing the challenges of traditional and non-traditional security threats and supporting capacity building of global security governance.

The GSI emphasizes the role of the UN as the principal platform for resolving global security issues and promotes a number of China-initiated regional peace and security initiatives, including the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum, the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, the Global Data Security Initiative and its regional iterations in Central Asia and Latin America. 

Respecting diverse civilizations

Equal dialogues between civilizations and rejection of cultural hegemony should be a modus of operation in international relations. Imposing specific cultural norms, or insisting on one civilizational model, is not the right path to harmony in international relations.

After putting forward the GDI and the GSI to address the common challenges faced by the whole world throughout human history, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward a third, equally overarching proposal: the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI). The China proposed GCI advocates the respect for the diversity of civilizations, upholding the common values of humanity, valuing the inheritance and innovation of civilizations, and strengthening international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation. 

China’s shifting from being nation-oriented to focusing on the whole of humankind is fresh and very current in the era we live in now. Building a human community with a shared future is the overall goal of China’s foreign affairs policy. As I have spoken before, ideally the leading countries of the world would cooperate on building a new type of international relations.

Building a shared future

According to a poll from the European Council on Foreign Relations, for the first time ever, slightly more people in developing countries are favorable towards China than towards the US. This is especially so among the 4.6 billion people living in countries supported by the BRI. People across the world hold differing ideas about the future world order. Many believe the US-led liberal order is withering away.

Even in the West, just 9 per cent of people in the US, 7 per cent in the EU countries polled, and 4 per cent in Great Britain see American global supremacy as the most likely state of affairs in a decade from now. (Ash et al. 2023) 

In Europe and the US, the prevailing view is that bipolarity is coming back. Among the powerful “rest,” some 61 per cent of people in Russia, 61 per cent in China, 51 per cent in Turkey, and 48 per cent in India see the future world order defined either by multipolarity or Chinese (or other non-Western) dominance.

The international system is likely to continue to be in a state of flux in the near future. Within the positioning of the developing countries and emerging economies will be crucial concerning the future of the world order.

The future of the world will be more consistent with diversity and pluralism in its norms, means of communication and leadership. Different value systems will be co-existing in the world. The times are very exciting, and the world is on a cusp of serious changes. 

Zhidas Daskalovski is a tenured full professor from the Faculty of Security at the University of Kliment Ohridski of North Macedonia.