Debate in Europe about China’s global role now rarely escapes the language of competition. The Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative have all been read through this lens. On 1 September 2025, President Xi Jinping added the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Plus meeting in Tianjin. Built around sovereign equality, international rule of law, multilateralism, a people-centred approach and action orientation, the GGI calls for reform of global governance, a stronger voice for developing countries and wider participation in rule-making (see Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2025).
In European policy debates, it can look like another attempt by China to expand its influence and reshape the international order. That concern is understandable, yet it leaves a harder question unanswered: why do parts of this agenda sound familiar, and sometimes attractive, across the Global South?
China’s June 2026 white paper on global governance widened the GGI agenda to include reform of the international financial system, artificial intelligence, climate change and trade. Officially, Beijing is not intending to abandon the United Nations (UN) or build an entirely separate international order; its stated aim is to reform the existing one. The Chinese government claims that the GGI has received support or positive responses from nearly 160 countries and international organisations, while more than 60 countries have joined a “Group of Friends on Global Governance” (see State Council Information Office, 2026). Those figures are Beijing’s own and should not be read as evidence that nearly 160 states endorse China’s wider vision of international order. Nevertheless, they do show that the initiative has attracted a meaningful diplomatic response.
That response has material roots. African states make up about 28 per cent of UN membership and represent more than a billion people, however, none of the five permanent seats on the Security Council is held by an African country. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described this imbalance as part of a “historical injustice” in global governance (see United Nations, 2024).
Financing pressures are even more immediate. The UN estimates that developing countries face an annual Sustainable Development Goal financing gap of around $4 trillion, while low- and middle-income countries paid a record $1.4 trillion in debt service in 2023 (see United Nations, 2025). The OECD estimates that the gap could reach $6.4 trillion by 2030 if current trends continue (see OECD, 2025). These are not grievances invented by Beijing; China’s global governance narrative is being built on problems that already exist.
The GGI brings these otherwise scattered concerns into a single political frame and links them to ideas China has promoted for years, including sovereign equality, development rights, non-interference and South-South cooperation. Its novelty lies less in a new theory of governance than in organising long-running frustrations and reform demands into a narrative that Beijing can name and advance. That helps explain why treating the GGI simply as a geopolitical instrument is insufficient.
The “Global South” is also not a bloc waiting to choose between China and Europe. India, Brazil, South Africa, Southeast Asian states, Gulf countries and African governments have distinct interests and room for manoeuvre. Accepting Chinese investment does not imply support for every Chinese foreign-policy position, and support for financial reform does not amount to endorsing Beijing’s preferred solutions. Closer ties with Europe produce no automatic alignment either. For many states, the aim is to preserve policy space and draw practical benefits from several partnerships at once.
This makes the China-Europe divide over global governance less binary than the language of rival orders often suggests. Both the EU and China stress the importance of the UN and invoke international law, multilateralism and reform, but they attach different priorities to those principles. The EU places greater emphasis on human rights, accountability and consistent application of international law while seeking a more effective multilateral system (see EEAS, 2026).
The GGI gives more weight to sovereign equality, development rights and policy autonomy, and argues that developing countries should have greater representation and that international rules should not be shaped by a small group of states (see Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2025). The differences are substantial in areas such as sanctions, digital governance, security and human rights. Yet there is overlap in representation, selected institutional reforms, development finance and cross-border challenges. Europe does not need to dilute its principles to acknowledge that some underlying problems are real.
That point should shape Europe’s engagement with the Global South. The starting question cannot always be how to respond to China. For instance, Global Gateway, launched by the EU in 2021, supports projects in digital infrastructure, energy, transport, health, education and research, and the EU says Team Europe has mobilised more than €306 billion through it by 2026 (see European Commission, 2026). Yet Global Gateway is frequently discussed as Europe’s answer to the Belt and Road Initiative. If it is presented mainly as an alternative to a Chinese offer, Beijing remains the centre of the story.
Instead, partner countries tend to ask more practical questions: whether projects will be delivered, whether financing arrives on time, and whether investments match national priorities. European standards on transparency, environmental protection and sustainability matter, but their appeal depends on whether they also produce visible investment and development gains.
Institutional reform raises the same issue. The EU has long defended “effective multilateralism” and in 2026 again called for a renewed and strengthened multilateral system centred on the UN (see EEAS, 2026). The harder test comes when reform touches the distribution of influence itself: quota shares and voting power in international financial institutions, the representation of developing countries, and long-standing privileges.
If Europe supports reform in principle but moves cautiously when representation and power are at stake, it leaves Beijing more room to present itself as the advocate of change. That does not require accepting China’s preferred reforms, but it does require Europe to show how far it is willing to support concrete changes in institutions where demands for fairer representation have persisted for years.
The GGI is still far from a complete blueprint for a new international order. Its significance lies elsewhere. China is packaging long-standing Global South demands into a political framework that it can define, promote and connect to its wider diplomatic agenda. Europe will gain little from answering only the Chinese part of that equation. If it focuses on rebutting what Beijing proposes without addressing why those proposals resonate, it may win an argument while weakening the basis for durable partnerships.
Many Global South countries do not want their relationships with China and Europe reduced to a one-off choice between camps. For Europe, the real contest is not about producing more diplomatic concepts. It is about turning commitments to multilateralism, representation and development into things partner countries can see: seats, finance, projects and opportunities.
Li Yang is a researcher in the Horizon Europe ReConnect China project and a doctoral researcher at Ghent University. His research focuses on China’s foreign policy, EU–China relations, global governance, economic security and strategic competition, with particular interests in China’s engagement with the Global South and Europe’s evolving China policy.
Long Ting is a joint doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Law and Criminology at Ghent University and the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Her research focuses on Chinese and European law, EU–China relations, global governance, international political economy, and China’s relations with Europe and the Global South.