The new Global Governance Initiative that President Xi presented at the recent SCO and BRICS summits represents the most direct Chinese challenge to the U.S.-led global order since the Cold War. The United States needs to strengthen its counter-messaging in response.
Recent weeks saw a buzz of Chinese diplomatic activity. From August 31 to September 1, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held its largest leadership summit in terms of seniority and numbers. President Xi Jinping used the opportunity to roll out a new Global Governance Initiative (GGI). The following week, Xi presented the GGI to a virtual summit of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) group. Chinese diplomacy envisions the GGI as a central mechanism for rallying the so-called “Global South” behind PRC policies.
This 25th annual Heads of State Council meeting in Tianjin notably reorganized the group’s membership categories to reflect its growth. The SCO’s full members presently comprise Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. In the past, the SCO had two categories of affiliates: “observer states” and “dialogue partners.” In recent years, however, many of the former observers—including India, Pakistan, and Iran—have graduated to full membership, leaving only a couple of formal observers (Mongolia and Afghanistan). Meanwhile, the number of “dialogue partners” has substantially expanded. For this reason, the Tianjin summit combined both categories into “SCO partners.”
Of the two dozen documents approved at the summit, the most important was the “Tianjin Declaration.” Many of its themes resembled those found in previous summit declarations. These included demands for “mutual respect for sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, equality, mutual benefit, non-interference in internal affairs, and the principle of non-use or threat of use of force.” Another SCO leitmotif was the affirmation of “the ‘Shanghai Spirit’ of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations, and pursuit of common development.” The text again denounced “double standards” regarding human rights, counterterrorism, and other issues where members often differ from Western governments.
Still, the Tianjin Declaration included novelties. Perhaps due to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s making his first trip to the PRC in seven years, the text endorsed the Hindu concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam [“One Earth, One Family, One Future”]. Furthermore, the Declaration condemned the April 2025 terrorist incident against Indian nationals in Pahalgam, which precipitated the recent war between members India and Pakistan, as well as the Gaza situation and the Israeli-U.S. attack against SCO member Iran. The statement also called for greater high-tech collaboration, especially regarding artificial intelligence, and upholding an “open, transparent, fair, inclusive, and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system.”
Yet, the SCO faces competition from the BRICS. With Beijing’s and Moscow’s backing, the BRICS has also been enlarging its mandate and membership. During the last two years, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Ethiopia, and the UAE joined the group, while nine countries have become official “partner countries.”
As a leading participant in both groups, Beijing faces a challenge in balancing its SCO and BRICS policies. The PRC has supported their expansion and financed the activities of both institutions, sending senior representatives, typically Xi himself, to their important meetings. Chinese commentary depicts both as representing the Global South (aka the “global majority”), of which the PRC sees itself as the vanguard. China has recently devoted more attention to both institutions as it has scaled back its Belt and Road Initiative. PRC officials hope that all these multilateral structures will induce participants to favor Beijing’s rather than Washington’s policies.
The SCO and the BRICS have overlapping non-Western memberships. Both are essentially intra-governmental structures lacking autonomous authority, power to enforce decisions, or organic resources (including funding sources). They offer an equally flexible menu of concrete issue-based projects that members can participate in or ignore. Both rely on consensus-based decision-making; governments can block or abstain from projects they oppose. Reflecting a commitment to “civilizational diversity,” members refrain from overtly criticizing one another’s domestic policies. In both institutions, some participants (especially China) want to weaken U.S. influence, whereas others (such as the SCO’s Central Asian members or some BRICS partners) are hedging against such an unwanted but potentially regrettable development.
But the two institutions differ in essential respects. The SCO has a secretariat, a charter, and other permanent bodies. In contrast, the BRICS employs periodic meetings, temporary working groups, and intergovernmental financial mechanisms to coordinate policies. The SCO has a denoted geographic heartland (Central Asia) and treats “Eurasia” as its core region; the BRICS has global aspirations and more comprehensively claims to represent the Global South. The latter’s membership is more heterogeneous, its initiatives are better resourced, and BRICS members explicitly aspire to transform global economic processes.
One reason why Xi proposed the GGI may have been to align both organizations behind China’s preferred global order. According to the Foreign Ministry Concept Paper, the GGI aims to build a more just multipolar world order based on sovereign equality as “the foremost premise,” international law as “the fundamental safeguard,” multilateralism as “the basic pathway,” “a people-centered approach” as “the underpinning value,” and “real results” as the concrete outcome.
However, Chinese interpretations more directly challenge U.S. policies. Foreign Minister Wang Yi identified a core goal as ending “the monopoly of global governance by some countries.” PRC statements also emphasize the need to “oppose all forms of protectionism” and “place development at the heart of our international agenda.” The call for “an equal and orderly multipolar world” implicitly criticizes the United States for sustaining inequality and causing disorder. The emphasis on “sovereign equality,” criticism of “double standards,” and demand that “the house rules of a few countries must not be imposed upon others” augment PRC criticisms of American diplomacy. The insistence that the old order is decaying into a “new period of turbulence and transformation” and that its institutions suffer multiple “deficiencies” justify PRC-friendly GGI principles filling the vacuum.
Conversely, the stress on multilateralism, the United Nations, and “greater democracy in international relations” aims to appeal to developing countries that also perceive “serious underrepresentation of the Global South” and demand more influence in determining global governance. In speeches to both groups, Xi maintained that, since their members encompassed substantial shares of the world’s population, natural resources, and global GDP, they “should leverage our respective strengths” to “coordinate global actions” and induce others to address their demands.
The GGI represents the most direct PRC attempt to offer an alternative vision of world order since the Cold War. China will continue to leverage the concept to rally support behind Beijing and against Washington in coming years. The United States needs strong diplomatic and informational countermeasures to parry the campaign to redefine global principles to its detriment.
