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Future-Gazing China’s Global Governance Initiative

By Lukas Fiala At China’s SCO summit earlier this month, Xi launched yet another one of his signature foreign policy-oriented projects: the Global Governance Initiative (GGI). Adding an umbrella framing to the existing alphabet soup of GSI, GDI, GCI and ...

China’s Defense Minister Lays Out Security Priorities

China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun laid out the country’s defense priorities in his opening speech at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum. About 1,800 representatives from more than 100 countries attended the annual defense gathering. Dong met with defense heads from Malaysia, Cambodia, ...

China Launches Coordinated Media Campaign to Promote New Global Governance Initiative in Africa

The Chinese government launched what appears to be a coordinated media campaign across Africa to promote Beijing's new Global Governance Initiative (GGI), which President Xi Jinping announced at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Over the past week, a mix of ...

BRICS Criticize Tariffs at Muted Online Summit

The leaders of the BRICS countries gathered online on Monday for a summit at the invitation of Brazil, the current leader of the bloc. The gathering saw some sharp criticism of U.S.-led trade disruptions, but the tone was more muted than last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) ...

The Trump, Xi Foreign Policy Duel in Southeast Asia

Two sharply contrasting foreign policy visions emerged this week from China and the United States. In Beijing, President Xi Jinping outlined an agenda in talks with fellow BRICS leaders that directly challenged Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine, urging instead for stronger ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

The G20 Summit and the Half-Life of a Joke

When it was announced in 2023 that the African Union would become a full member of the G20, I darkly joked on a podcast that the AU’s entry into the body could very well mark the moment the G20 lost its status as one of the most important global coordination forums. Mark my words, I said, soon The Economist will be like “Uhhh, the G20 is OVER – it’s the ...

Indonesia Backs Xi’s Global Governance Initiative at BRICS Meet

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has thrown his support behind Chinese President Xi Jinping’s proposals at a BRICS virtual leaders’ meeting last night. The statement is aligning Southeast Asia’s largest economy more closely with Beijing’s call to defend multilateralism and reject ...

China Wins Myanmar’s Nod for Xi’s Global Plan, Seeks Closer Ties

Myanmar’s military leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, said ties with China are at their strongest and pledged to deepen cooperation as the country faces political and economic pressure from major powers. Speaking to Chinese media and business representatives in ...

Revealing Reactions to China’s Festival of Optics

In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in ...

China’s Military Parade Cements Superpower Optics

China displayed a vast array of advanced weapons during a large military parade to mark the 80th commemoration of World War II. The parade snaked down Chang'an Avenue in central Beijing. President Xi Jinping delivered a speech on Tiananmen Square and inspected the soldiers from a parade ...

Xi Launches Global Governance Initiative

In addition to China’s President Xi Jinping’s diplomatic blitz at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit and this week’s upcoming military parade, he also launched the Global Governance initiative. It is the latest - and possibly the most prominent - of a series of initiatives that emblematize China’s ...

Commitment Tracker: What Xi Promised at SCO Summit

This year’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit will likely be remembered for its optics dominated by embullient hugs between China’s President Xi Jinping, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as the launch of the Global Governance Initiative.