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From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The Director, Centre for China Studies (CCS), Charles Onunaiju, has applauded China’s Global Governance Initiative.
He made the commendation while speaking alongside other eminent scholars at a one-day seminar on the global governance initiative organised by the Centre for Contemporary China-Africa Research and the Centre for China Studies in Abuja.
He said despite the trends of peace and development, broad inclusion and participation desired by all peoples and the seeming convergence of all human aspirations to the trends and the evolving trajectories towards the community of shared future for humanity, there was the obvious deficit in global governance, which was more pronounced in the evident shortage of the voices and impacts of the Global South in the essential mechanisms for global governance.
He also said because the basic lacuna in international relations and its governance process denied the essential inputs and the aggregate wisdom of the majority of the world stakeholders, outcomes of global governance would be deficit in basic consensus and could thus be paralysed without the benefit of tangible contributions to the responses to the numerous global challenges. He said: “China has taken a bold step to bridge the lacuna and has proposed the Global Governance Initiative.”
He recalled that at a recent summit of the 25th Heads of States Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held in the Chinese city of Tianjin, Chinese President, Xi Jinping, proposed the Global Governance Initiative and expressed China’s resolve to “work with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system and advance toward a community with a shared future for humanity.”
He also said President Xi went further to outline the essential and basic features of the proposed Global Governance Initiative to include first and foremost, sovereign equality, which recognises the equal weight and stake all states in the international system, which must translate to inclusive decision-making and equitable participation of all state actors, thereby giving effect to the democratisation of the international system.
According to Onunaiju, “The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) also calls for unconditional adherence to the United Nations system as the embodiment of universally recognised expression of the law and rule-based system of international intercourse, while cautioning that “the house rules of a few countries must not be imposed on others.”
The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) further emphasised multilateralism, which shall be entrenched in the architecture of global governance system that would be characterised by “extensive consultations and joint contribution for shared benefit,” and further reaffirmed the centrality of the United Nations, whose authority and key role is irreplaceable in global governance. The proposed framework for global governance underscored the fact that the initiative would not be just about the “games, nations play,” but should be one that “ensures that the people of every nation are the actors in and beneficiaries of global governance, so as to better tackle the common challenges of mankind. Only the people-centred approach to global governance can guarantee and deliver tangible results. The fifth leg of the proposed initiative would focus on taking real actions that produce tangible results.
Director, Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts, Sam Amadi, said from the consideration of China’s economic transformation, the importance of China’s new commitment to a new world order can be understood.
He added that China has arrived economically and it needed to create a world that enhances its economic advantage.
“That world is a world of multilateralism and multiple global power structures. China’s sustained economic growth and flourishing requires a restructuring of global politics away from what it is under President Donald Trump. We have to admit that China’s version of the new world order mirrors the aspirations of the United Nations better than what seems like the new Trump doctrine of bilateralism and transactional relationship. The question to explore is how will this new world that China is promoting look like? How will Africa benefit? Is this world order truly new? China has styled this idea of a better global governance as Global Governance Initiative (GGI),” Amadi said.
