I'm Robert Lawrence Kuhn and here's what I'm watching: China's three new global initiatives: China's Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative. The three are linked in a major proposal on reforming global governance and in an official position paper on the global community of shared future, both published by the Chinese government in September, about two weeks apart. The three initiatives are China's explicit road map, drawn by President Xi Jinping, laying out China's global ambition. All should take note.
The overarching theme, and the arc of the argument, are clear: Humanity is at a crossroads; interdependence is inevitable; the new era calls for new ideas; and China's grand initiatives, based on its history and experience, is an enlightened new vision for building a better world. The three initiatives, China says, offer China's solutions to major problems pertaining to global peace and development. The world should pay attention.
The first is China's Global Development Initiative, the GDI, which builds on the foundation of major infrastructure, the product of the Belt and Road Initiative, and shifts to more targeted, sustainable projects – poverty alleviation, food security, healthcare, developmental finance, industrialization, green development, digital economy, and connectivity.
These serve, as China puts it, "as the material foundation for security and civilization," to help recipient countries expand their capacity for development, and reflect the "core requirement" of a "people-centered approach" and "united, equal, balanced, and inclusive global development partnerships." President Xi highlighted the GDI's main principles as "people-centered," "innovation-driven," and focused on "results-oriented actions" that bring "benefits for all." Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the GDI as "a rallying call to galvanize greater attention on development and bring it back to the center of the international agenda."
In hosting the High-level Dialogue on Global Development in 2022, China presented 32 major measures to implement the GDI, such as the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund totaling four billion USD. The expanding library of GDI projects now exceeds 200.
The six GDI resolute commitments: development as first priority; people-centered approach; inclusiveness and benefits for all; innovation-driven development; harmony between humanity and nature; and results-oriented actions.
Foreign analysts and media from developed countries are not so sanguine. As one put it, "the GDI's goal is to usurp the international dialogue on the global development agenda, place it under Chinese tutelage, and infuse it with (supposed) Chinese principles." Another, the GDI puts "riches over rights," meaning "the collective rights of the state over the rights of the individual in pursuit of 'the greater good'."
As of September 2023, the GDI received the support of more than 100 countries and international organizations and the blessing of the UN Secretary-General, and more than 70 countries joined the Group of Friends of the GDI at the UN.
I'm keeping watch. I'm Robert Lawrence Kuhn.
Script: Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Editors: Xiao Qiong, Hao Xinxin
Designer: Qi Haiming
Producer: Wang Ying
Chief Editor: Wei Wei
Supervisors: Xiao Jian, Adam Zhu
(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)