What’s in China’s Plan for Global Governance Reform?

On September 13, China’s Foreign Ministry released a proposal “on the reform and development of global governance.” The timing was significant – three days after the G-20 summit in New Delhi concluded and six days before the U.N. General Assembly began its annual session (although Chinese President Xi Jinping did not attend either event).

As a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, the proposal “elaborates on China’s position and proposition on global security, development, human rights and social, and new frontiers governance as well as on reform of multilateral institutions…” The spokesperson added that China “stand[s] ready to work with all sides to practice true multilateralism.”

The need for an overhaul of the global governance architecture is one of the few broadly accepted principles in the world today. The devil, of course, is in the details; countries differ widely on the scope and purpose of intended reforms (whether, for instance, the goal is to increase representation of the developing world or make global governance more effective, two ambitions that could well be contradictory).

It’s also not news that China wants to remake the world order. That has been a consistent talking point for Beijing for years, in the guise of “democratizing” global governance. To the United States and its allies, this is a threat to the values and principles that “have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years,” as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it in a May 2022 speech. That’s why, in the same speech, Blinken characterized China as “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order.”

This view, however, has less buy-in among developing countries, which share China’s frustration at being shut out of a global governance framework developed in the 1940s, when countries like India, Indonesia, and almost the entire African continent were still fighting for their independence from colonial rule.

Amid these contested views of China’s bid to remake the world order, we now have the clearest picture yet of how, exactly, Beijing wants global governance to change.

Much of the document is not new; it’s more putting together the pieces that China has already laid on the table. Those pieces include the tagline of “building a community with a shared future for mankind,” which dates back to Xi Jinping’s first U.N. General Assembly in 2013, as well as three newer proposals rolled out since 2021: the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI), and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI).

Interestingly, none of these are actually proposals for “global governance.” Instead, the three Chinese initiatives “advocate” various “visions” – with the question of how to implement those visions left blank. There are no proposals for binding commitments or – perhaps the most basic aspect of global governance – structures for regular meetings and discussions of global norms and rules among U.N. member states.

Indeed, the main criticism of China’s “global” initiatives to date has been that they are actually bilateral initiatives applied globally – essentially a network of separate “China-plus-one” agreements. This has been the major drawback of the Belt and Road Initiative, for instance, and nothing we’ve seen so far from the GDI, GSI, or GCI suggests that they will be any different. These initiatives may involve most of the world, but they still lack a truly multilateral character.

China’s overview of the GSI, for example, largely consists of individual position statements on individual “hotspot” issues: the Russia-Ukraine war, North Korea, Afghanistan, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and others. That does not amount to a proposal for “global governance” in the security realm.

The section on the GDI is more fleshed out, likely because China has far more experience with development aid than as a global security provider. Here, China wants to sync the U.N. development agenda with the Global Development Initiative, resulting in “greater synergy of development strategies at the global, regional, subregional and national levels.” Essentially, China wants to capitalize on the existing global governance structure – largely the U.N. – to expand the scope and legitimacy of its own efforts, which largely take place on the bilateral level.

Finally, there is a section dedicated to the GCI, which the proposal links to the goal of “advancing global human rights.” This section is the biggest cause for concern, as it crystallizes China’s opposition to the concept of universal human rights in favor of “civilization”-based alternatives. The proposal repeats previous assertions that global governance must “reject imposing values and models on others.” Instead, China argues, “There is no one-size-fits-all model for promoting and protecting human rights. All countries’ independent choice of their own path of human rights development should be respected.”

That obviously risks splintering the world into regions where rights are freely denied because they don’t match a particular government’s definition of cultural, religious, or traditional norms.

This is exactly what is happening to Afghanistan, where China seems unbothered that the practical impact of its preferred policy is to strip millions of girls and women of the right to go to school, work, or even take a walk in the park. Chinese officials have repeatedly declined to mention any such concerns in engagements with their Taliban counterparts, instead praising the new regime for supposedly restoring Afghanistan’s security and prosperity.

It’s abundantly clear that that notion of universal human rights has never fully worked in practice; there is no functioning global body that can truly hold rights-abusing governments accountable. But China is essentially arguing that the world should no longer try, and stop even paying lip service to the idea. Even empty criticism is apparently too much for Beijing to swallow.

The proposal makes this explicit by saying that the “Human Rights Council and other U.N. human rights bodies should be platforms for dialogue and cooperation, not places for confrontation and pressuring.” If the HRC were to stop “pressuring” governments to improve their human rights record – again, solely through written criticisms, not through any concrete actions – it’s hard to fathom what its purpose would be.

China’s proposal repeatedly mentions the United Nations, which it places “at the core” of the international system. But how does China plan to make the U.N. work better to actually advance its various visions?

Perhaps the most eye-catching debate involving U.N. reform is the call to expand the U.N. Security Council (UNSC). It’s here that China’s calls for “increasing the voice of developing countries” clash with its vested interest – as a permanent UNSC member itself – in keeping the grouping small and powerful. India, for example, has long coveted permanent UNSC membership, but Beijing is unlikely to support granting a rival neighbor the exclusive status China currently enjoys.

Indeed, China’s thoughts on UNSC reform implicitly limit consideration to countries whose policies Beijing agrees with: “developing countries with independent foreign policies and just positions.” (In China’s diplomatic parlance, “independent foreign policies” is code for “not aligned with the United States.”)

In essence, China wants to slow-roll UNSC reform by keeping the same moribund discussion process currently in place – with one notable exception. “China supports making special arrangements to meet Africa’s aspiration as a priority,” the proposal states. China also took care to emphasize that UNSC reform must “redress the historical injustices done to Africa.”

The special emphasis on Africa here is telling, as it excludes a number of other countries that China would feel far more ambivalent about granting UNSC membership to, including the so-called G4 of India, Brazil, Japan, and Germany. African countries have been among China’s most reliable partners, so China has little to lose – and potentially much to gain – by supporting more African representation in the UNSC.

Every country’s vision for global governance reform necessarily serves its national interest; China is no different in that regard. What makes China’s proposal noteworthy is that it’s already on its way to being implemented on the ground. As Blinken put it back in May 2022, “China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.”

So it’s critical to pay attention to China’s vision for how the international order should work and what its goals should be. Even if the details on implementation are fuzzy, Beijing will be working constantly to move the needle toward its envisioned world.

Whether that will actually “create a better future for humanity,” as China has promised, remains very much in doubt.