How China Is Reordering Global Governance From Within

On June 17, the State Council Information Office published “More Just and Equitable Global Governance: China’s Principles, Proposals and Actions.” Its most revealing line was also its most conservative: “All countries should firmly uphold the international system with the U.N. at its core, safeguard the international order based on international law, and uphold the basic norms governing international relations underpinned by the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, instead of reinventing the wheel.”

On July 16, 29 governments signed the founding agreement of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in Shanghai. The new body, headquartered in China, invokes the United Nations Charter and a “people-centered” approach.

Together, these two events capture Beijing’s method for remaking global governance. Rather than propose a rival constitution, China preserves the institutions and texts of the postwar order while reweighting their principles and creating new, China-led venues to operationalize them.

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