How China is advancing the building of a more just and equitable global governance system

Editor's Note: IP Kuai Peng is the president of the Macao Association of Scholars and vice rector of the City University of Macao. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

On September 1, 2025, at the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus" Meeting in Tianjin, President Xi Jinping solemnly put forward the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) to the world. Following the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, this is another international public good that China has offered in response to a changing global landscape. It advocates five core principles – adhering to sovereign equality, abiding by the international rule of law, practicing multilateralism, advocating a people-centered approach, and focusing on taking real actions – charting the course for reforming and improving the global governance system.

Over the past year, the initiative's connotation has grown richer, its practical footprint has continued to expand, and it has won broad support and an active response from the international community, gathering consensus from a growing number of countries and steering the world toward a more just and reasonable direction.

The world today is marked by turmoil and transformation, with deficits in peace, development, security, and governance remaining prominent. Unilateralism and hegemonic acts have eroded the multilateral order, while the legitimate aspirations of countries of the Global South have long received insufficient attention.

Rooted in the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, the GGI upholds a vision of global governance based on extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefit. It rejects bloc confrontation and does not seek to export any institutional model. It maintains that all countries, regardless of size, strength, or wealth, have the right to participate equally in global affairs and to jointly seek solutions to global crises.

Since its proposal, a series of concrete measures clearly demonstrate the initiative's distinctive results-oriented character. The International Organization for Mediation, initiated by China and operating in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), has just marked its first year of operations. It is the world's first intergovernmental international organization dedicated to settling international disputes through mediation. Its influence continues to grow, and in the future, it will work to build an inclusive global mediation ecosystem, contributing to international peace and global governance. At China's initiative, the World Data Organization and the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization have been established in China, providing institutional public goods for improving global governance in emerging fields. Meanwhile, the Group of Friends of Global Governance has expanded its presence in New York, Geneva, and Vienna, with more countries and international organizations joining the dialogue mechanism, jointly upholding multilateralism and the international rule of law. From discussions on macro rules to the delivery of "small and beautiful" livelihood projects, the GGI has carved out a practical path in which ideas are translated into consensus and consensus into action, offering an important platform for Global South countries to voice their views and take part in global governance.

As a scholar from the Macao SAR, I have observed that the initiative's advocacy of the coexistence of diverse civilizations, cross-cultural dialogue, and practical multilateral cooperation aligns closely with Macao's experience under "One Country, Two Systems." Since its return to the motherland, Macao has drawn on its unique historical and cultural endowments, given full play to its role as a platform for commercial and trade cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, and used the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macao) as a vehicle to continuously build bridges for dialogue across civilizations and nations. The practice of the Macao-Portuguese-speaking countries platform has proven that actors from different civilizations and different institutional backgrounds can conduct economic and trade exchanges, people-to-people communication, and practical cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, while preserving their own characteristics and pursuing common interests. The cross-regional scenarios of economic, trade, cultural, and technological collaboration it has built provide a highly instructive paradigm for deep exchanges among different civilizations and economies worldwide. This is precisely the spirit advocated by the GGI: respecting differences, seeking common ground, and resolving divergences through dialogue and cooperation.

Specifically, the practice of the Macao-Portuguese-speaking countries platform responds to the initiative's core principles in three dimensions.

First, Macao has established a model of governance compatibility, responding to the GGI's emphasis on "upholding sovereign equality" and "abiding by the international rule of law." Under the framework of "One Country, Two Systems," Macao both safeguards national sovereignty and unity and maintains the independent operation of its own legal system and economic institutions, achieving peaceful coexistence and efficient collaboration among different systems within a single governance framework.

Second, Macao has developed a dual-track cooperation model combining intergovernmental multilateral mechanisms with market-oriented service platforms, offering a pathway for translating the GGI's principles of "focusing on taking real actions" and "practicing multilateralism" from macro consensus to micro-level implementation. Since the founding of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macao) in 2003, trade between China and Portuguese-speaking countries has grown from more than $11 billion to a new record of over $225 billion in 2024. At the end of 2025, the Service Center for Economy and Trade between China and Portuguese/Spanish-speaking Countries, jointly established by the Macao SAR Government and the Executive Committee of the Hengqin Cooperation Zone, was officially registered. Supported by an initial industrial development investment fund of 1 billion yuan, it has already established contact with more than 200 enterprises and signed service agreements or framework cooperation agreements with more than 80 of them.

Third, Macao has explored a two-way path of "mutual learning among civilizations plus practical cooperation," responding to the GGI's principle of "advocating the people-centered approach." Taking Macao's model of "promoting medicine through medical services" as an example, through the Guangdong-Macao Cooperation Traditional Chinese Medicine Science and Technology Industrial Park, Macao has helped more than 20 products successfully obtain registration and market access approval in Portuguese-speaking countries, translating the wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine into accessible health benefits for people in Portuguese-speaking countries. In December 2025, the inaugural International Forum on Mutual Learning Among Civilizations was held in Macao, where international experts agreed that Macao's centuries-old practice of blending Chinese and Western civilizations offers a vivid example for global mutual learning. The Macao Initiative released at the forum elevated Macao's cross-cultural exchange experience into a global consensus. In September 2026, the Forum of Think Tanks between China and Portuguese-speaking and Spanish-speaking Countries 2026 was held under the theme of practicing the GGI and building a community with a shared future for humanity, marking the alignment of the Macao platform with the GGI at the level of ideas.

Viewed through the lens of Macao's practice, the deeper logic of the GGI becomes clear: a community with a shared future for humanity is not an abstract philosophical concept, but a practical goal that can be progressively realized through concrete institutional design, platform building and project delivery. This is precisely the inherent unity between the GGI and the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind – governance is the means, the community is the goal, and people's sense of fulfillment is the benchmark.

The value of the GGI lies in its provision of a Chinese solution that takes into account the aspirations of all parties and emphasizes practical effectiveness, champions true multilateralism, rejects double standards, and promotes a global governance system that reflects the new changes in the international landscape and better represents the interests of developing countries. More countries embrace this vision precisely because they all feel keenly that no country can stay immune to global challenges, and that only by pulling together in the same boat can all nations weather the storms ahead.