Xi’s GGI – Charting a Path for a Balanced World Order
By Kirtan Bhana - TDS
8 September 2025
When President Xi Jinping unveiled the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, the timing was neither coincidental nor symbolic alone. It coincided with the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the founding of the United Nations, a moment that continues to remind humanity of the dangers of unchecked aggression and the transformative hope of collective action.
The UN’s founding in 1945 was humanity’s response to the devastation of two world wars. New York City, chosen as its headquarters, became the symbolic nerve centre of international governance. Cosmopolitan and diverse, New York reflects the very ideals the UN aspired to, a gathering place for the traditions, languages, and cultures of the world.
The United States, too, once prided itself on embodying this openness. Yet a striking contrast has emerged: while New York represents global inclusivity, Washington’s foreign policy often undermines it, with unilateral interventions, selective application of international law, and the use of sanctions that weaken multilateralism. The GGI, in this light, is not a rejection of the UN but a call to return to its spirit, ensuring that global governance is legitimate, inclusive, and representative of the Global South as well as established powers.
The Five Core Concepts of the GGI
1. Sovereign Equality – The principle that no state is too small to matter and none too powerful to dominate. Sovereignty, dignity, and freedom of choice are the non-negotiables.
2. Rule of Law – Global governance requires consistency. The GGI critiques double standards, where powerful states apply international law selectively while imposing unilateral sanctions or interventions.
3. Multilateralism – True multilateralism is not bloc politics but extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefit. The UN must be strengthened, not bypassed, as the legitimate platform for international dialogue.
4. People-Centred Development – Governance must ultimately serve human beings. From tackling climate change to reducing inequality, the wellbeing of people, not abstract geopolitics, should remain the compass.
5. Delivering Real Results – Xi stresses practicality. Governance is not about declarations alone but about solving problems; whether climate change, digital divides, financial instability, or artificial intelligence.
China is taking the lead in implementing an action plan of governance in an age of instant digital communication, quantum computing, AI, and robotics. The goal is to balance opportunities with a strong focus on ethics, inclusivity, and sustainability. The benefits of technology should be universally accessible, with frameworks that align with the UN’s Digital Global Compact. Responsible deployment of AI, for instance, can enhance governance and improve public services.
With emphasis on measured, meritocratic, people-centred systems, governance should nurture healthier civic habits. Values such as mindfulness, balance, and patience, deeply rooted in martial arts like Tai Chi and in sport and recreation, can help temper the overstimulation of fragmented information, populist soundbites, and social media-driven outrage. In this way, global governance becomes not only an institutional exercise, but also a cultural and moral one, guiding societies toward balance in an age of digital excess.
The GGI emerges in a world that is no longer unipolar but unmistakably multipolar. The world of 2025 demands greater democracy in international relations as rising nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America seek an equal voice.
The recent SCO Summit in Tianjin, which served as a launchpad for the GGI, exemplifies this new multipolar energy. Unlike Cold War-era blocs, it is not premised on ideological confrontation, but on pragmatic cooperation in security, development, and cultural exchange.
The GGI is the newest addition to a suite of Chinese proposals, the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI), and the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI). Together, these initiatives attempt to inject fresh momentum into global discourse. The GDI addresses development gaps, the GSI advocates dialogue over confrontation, and the GCI calls for civilizational mutual respect. The GGI, by contrast, seeks to supply the principles and architecture of governance itself, a guiding philosophy for reforming international institutions.
President Xi’s Global Governance Initiative is not a manifesto for dominance but an invitation to rebalance, recalibrate, and reform. It acknowledges that peace breeds prosperity, and that governance must be inclusive, lawful, and people-centred to survive the turbulence of our age.
In doing so, Xi draws upon a long lineage of Chinese political thought and achievement. Chairman Mao Zedong laid the foundations of sovereignty and independence in a period when China faced immense external pressures. Deng Xiaoping, with his policy of reform and opening-up, demonstrated how pragmatism and adaptability could transform a nation once impoverished by war into a dynamic economic powerhouse.
Xi positions the GGI as the next step in this continuum, a global application of lessons learned at home where governance is guided not by hegemony but by balance, inclusivity, and shared prosperity.
The initiative’s strength lies in its timing: 80 years after the birth of the UN, at a moment when governance deficits are most apparent, China positions itself not as a challenger to global order, but as a guardian of its renewal.
If embraced with sincerity and adapted with inclusivity, the GGI could indeed mark the beginning of a new epoch in planetary history, where cooperation, not confrontation, defines the destiny of nations.