On June 28–29, the 6th Global Governance Frontier Forum and the Symposium on “World Order Transformation and Global Governance” were held at Shandong University, Qingdao. Scholars convened to discuss topics including the Global South’s role in reshaping the world order, its participation in global governance, and China’s position amid the ongoing reconfiguration of the international system.

Consensus on global governance needed

Liu Zhenye, a professor from the Globalization and Global Issues Institute (GGII) at China University of Political Science and Law, noted that the world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation, in which the authority of global multilateral institutions is facing unprecedented challenges. Global governance and the international order are now beset by a range of deficits and legitimacy crises. According to Liu, a new model of competition and cooperation is emerging—one that intertwines “adversarial compromise” and “adversarial interdependence,” particularly in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and climate governance.

New global challenges and risks will continue to arise, necessitating a consensus on global governance to ensure collective human security, Liu appealed.

The liberal international order and the global governance system are facing profound structural crises. The Global South and other emerging powers have issued increasingly forceful calls for reforming global governance and reshaping the international order. Wei Ling, dean of the Graduate School at the University of International Business and Economics, observed that the current evolution of the global governance system is characterized by growing complexity in authority structures, the emergence of multi-centered and multi-nodal networks, and closer interaction across different levels and sectors of governance.

Looking ahead, Wei argued that reconstructing the global governance framework must follow a path of “institutional openness”—that is, responding to urgent governance needs, breaking path dependence, fostering cooperation among parallel institutions, and supporting the collective rise of new mechanisms—to establish an open, inclusive, and mutually beneficial governance framework.

Distinctive, effective Chinese approaches

With the global governance system undergoing structural transformation, China has offered distinctive intellectual frameworks and governance approaches. Fang Changping, a professor from the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, pointed out that China stresses the organic integration of national, regional, and global governance, extending its domestic governance philosophy into the broader international domain. These principles emphasize peace and development, promote harmony between humanity and nature, and address both symptoms and root causes of governance challenges.

China’s distinctive focus on the interplay between conceptual innovation and institutional design, particularly the modernization of its governance system and capacity, offers valuable insights for global governance reform, Fang added.

The vision of the human community with a sharded future replaces Western contractual approaches with a “symbiotic logic,” highlighted Gao Shangtao, a professor from the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University. This new framework, manifesting in inter-civilizational exchanges, security cooperation, and green development, has yielded tangible results through initiatives like BRICS expansion and in the shareholding structure of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. Such developments not only represent a departure from traditional great-power politics but also reflect the inevitable transition from hegemonic governance to collective co-governance.

Geng Xiefeng, also a professor at the GGII, underscored China’s pioneering role in fostering new South-South cooperation models characterized by unprecedented scale, institutional creativity, flexible cooperation, resilient inclusiveness, and pragmatic complementarity. By positioning Global South countries as active disseminators of norms rather than passive recipients, Chinese initiatives are driving a more multipolar and diverse form of global governance, offering a constructive response to the current impasse in the international system.