摘要：China hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit from late August to early September in Tianjin. Days later, it mar

By Warwick Powell

Lead: China's Global Governance Initiative makes a compelling case that international cooperation isn't idealistic dreaming but the most practical path forward in an interconnected world.

China hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit from late August to early September in Tianjin. Days later, it marked the 80th anniversary of the victory over Japanese aggression and global fascism with a military parade. At the SCO summit, President Xi Jinping launched the Global Governance Initiative (GGI). This marks the fourth of major international frameworks proposed by China over the past four years, following the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI) and the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI). These four initiatives must be read together. They are not isolated diplomatic gestures but components of an integrated vision for a new order of international cooperation.

The GGI comes as global multilateral institutions face their greatest strain since being established after World War II. The United Nations and the U.N. Security Council look increasingly paralyzed. They seem unable to restrain the eruption of regional conflicts or the unilateral interventions of the United States and its allies, from Venezuela to the Middle East. For many observers, this crisis confirms the long-standing realist critique: that international institutions are doomed to fail because the global system is inherently anarchic. As John Mearsheimer argues in "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics," in a world without a higher authority, powerful states inevitably prioritize self-interest and power maximization over adherence to rules. From this vantage point, the weakness of the U.N. is not a temporary aberration but the natural condition of world politics. It is something to be met with resignation rather than reform. For Mearsheimer, that's the "tragedy."

Yet there is an alternative reading. One can begin from the same diagnosis — that postwar multilateralism was hollowed out — but attribute its failure not to an inevitable logic of anarchy but to the hypocrisy of the so-called liberal international rules-based order. The nations that championed rules-based governance also repeatedly violated those rules when their interests were at stake. The U.S., in particular, undermined the legitimacy of global institutions by subordinating them to its own hegemonic designs. From this perspective, the U.N.'s impotence does not express some "natural order" of international anarchy. Rather, it is the direct consequence of a structurally unequal and politically compromised order.

It is precisely against this background that the GGI should be understood. Critics will claim the initiative is utopian, destined to fail for the same reasons the U.N. has faltered. But this critique rests on an impoverished notion of realism. Mainstream realists believe states pursue only narrow self-interest, creating inevitable conflict and zero-sum competition. This perspective cannot countenance the possibility that deepened collaboration itself can be rational self-interest.

A United Nations flag is pictured at Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 16, 2025. [Photo by Lian Yi/Xinhua]

Game theory offers an important corrective: when players interact repeatedly and can communicate, the incentive to cheat decreases over time while cooperation becomes more rewarding. Far from being locked into inevitable conflict, rational actors can discover cooperation as the most advantageous strategy. Those who persist in unilateral defection increasingly isolate themselves as rogues.

The GGI also rests on a more profound ontological claim. Realism and its rational-choice underpinnings assume atomized actors who pre-exist their relations interact only instrumentally. By contrast, the GGI presupposes that all entities exist only in and through their relations with others. In this view, multilateralism is not an artificial arrangement imposed on an anarchic world but the prior condition of global existence. To act outside this web of relations is to deny the very ground of one's security and prosperity. This approach better reflects lived reality than the abstract assumptions of rational-choice models that dominated Western social science in the late 20th century. Just as rational-choice theory lost traction for failing to describe the complexities of real human behavior, so too must realism be rethought for failing to grasp the relational foundation of international life.

The GGI is also timely. The more conflicts proliferate, the clearer it becomes that no nation's security can be built at the expense of others. Such attempts only deepen the security dilemma, fueling the very instability they aim to prevent. Conversely, shared prosperity and peace can only be sustained when nations acknowledge their mutual interdependence. This recognition is at the heart of the GGI's principles, particularly its emphasis on delivering real results — a pragmatic orientation that grounds lofty ideals in concrete cooperation.

A further dimension of the GGI must be stressed. The GGI is not confined to reviving the U.N. as a singular platform of global governance. Rather, the initiative underscores the idea of a plurality of multilateral interactions. This enables regional coordination, cross-regional collaboration and issue-specific partnerships. The vitality of multilateralism will not be judged by the formal endurance of the U.N. alone. Instead, it will be measured by the real results achieved through these diverse collaborative efforts.

Fu Cong (C, front), China's permanent representative to the United Nations, speaks at an emergency meeting of the Security Council at the UN headquarters in New York, June 22, 2025. China's permanent representative to the United Nations on Sunday condemned the United States for its strikes on Iranian nuclear sites at an emergency meeting of the Security Council. "Yesterday (Saturday), the United States conducted attacks on three Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. China strongly condemns the U.S. attacks on Iran and the bombing of nuclear facilities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency," said Fu Cong. [Photo by Xie E/Xinhua]

In this sense, multilateralism is not an abstract principle or static institution but an active practice — something nations do, not just think about. It emerges through the sustained work of coordination, problem-solving, and mutual adjustment in areas of shared concern, from climate change and clean energy to health security, economic development and regional stability. This represents a maturation of international thought and practice: moving beyond jurisprudential formalism, where treaties and institutions are mistaken for sufficient guarantees of cooperation, toward a recognition that the credibility of multilateralism rests in the walking of the walk. Conduct, not merely form, makes or breaks the legitimacy and sustainability of multilateralism.

From this perspective, the GGI is both practical and transformative. It shifts global governance away from empty proclamations toward a cooperative approach where outcomes, not procedures, measure success.

Far from attempting to replace U.S. hegemony with Chinese dominance, the GGI represents an effort to reactivate the foundational principles underpinning the U.N. at its inception: sovereign equality, mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and collective problem-solving. The realism of this project stems from the shifting balance of global power itself. The West no longer commands the unilateral capacity to capriciously enforce its preferences; the so-called rules-based order is crumbling not because it is being overthrown but because it can no longer function under the weight of its contradictions.

In this sense, the GGI is not merely a critique of the Western-led order but a focal moment. It is a lightning rod around which a new multilateral conversation can coalesce. If successful, it could breathe new life into the institutions of global governance, not by discarding them but by restoring their original promise. It is precisely because unilateralism is failing that a relational, multilateral alternative is both desirable and realistic.

Warwick Powell is an adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology.

来源：中国网一点号