Enhancing Global Governance in a Fragmented World

The world is facing numerous crises that demand a renewed commitment to multilateral cooperation. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the unequal distribution of vaccines and the need for global solidarity. Economic disruptions and rising debt distress followed, compounded by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, affecting food, fertilisers, and fuel markets worldwide. Efforts to combat climate change have been insufficient, and geopolitical tensions, particularly between China and the USA, threaten global regulatory frameworks. Within this challenging panorama, this article emphasises the indispensability of multilateralism in effectively addressing these pressing challenges head-on.

National sovereignty is often described as the ability to govern on one's own territory, but complete sovereignty has never existed in practice and there has always been cross-border trade and exchanges between local populations independent of state regulation. Climate change and global pandemics cross borders and challenge the ability of national governments to ensure security and that basic needs are met for their own populations. Joint action leads to better results and only multilateralism can foster effective sovereignty.

The challenges we face as a global community are diverse, multifaceted, and interrelated. These include political polarization, economic challenges, ecological challenges as well as challenges resulting from demographic shifts and migration. There is a growing awareness that major disasters or “catastrophes” related to these challenges are all a function of how humans interact with their environment, but these are now increasingly predictable and controllable thanks to cutting-edge technologies such as big data and AI that are used in disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Moreover, consensus on addressing these challenges should be a priority, not by abandoning our unique beliefs and values, but fostering mutual respect, which can ultimately prevent division and reduce the likelihood of unforeseen catastrophes.

Each of the major dramas in the twenty-first century was foreseeable and has left a significant mark on the reality around us and strongly affected the future. What is happening now is a resetting of the world (dis)order that emerged after the end of the Cold War, which has also seen the rise of China, which is weakening the large and wealthy countries of the West, including the USA, which does not want to accept it. Instead of confrontation Euro-Atlantic and Euro-Asian mega-systems should compete peacefully and cooperate without reaching for “military levers,” but by strengthening of transnational economic, cultural, and diplomatic levers. The EU, as part of both blocs, does not have to take sides and should also play a key role.

The possibility of a ‘The West and the Rest’ scenario appears much closer to reality today with some announcing the end of globalization and the beginning of a new era of fragmentation, conflict, and lack of cooperation. But is this really the case? It is true that geopolitical tensions will not fade while the appetite for natural resources keeps growing, but if international behavior is rational, interdependence will continue to be the ‘glue’ that binds today’s complicated global jigsaw together. It is essential to run to the rescue of multilateralism as no interdependence is possible without it.

Among economists and historians, there is virtual consensus that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization contributed significantly to the superlative global economic growth experienced over the past 75 years. What is less frequently considered is that the inception and evolution of the multilateral trading system were made possible because those developments were widely perceived among the US political establishment as serving the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States. In challenging US preeminence, the rise of China—which was vastly accelerated by the WTO benefits afforded its economy—has significantly eroded that once bedrock belief in Washington that the rules-based trading system enhances US security and is worth preserving. Indeed, national security and other strategic considerations are causing both Washington and Beijing to deprioritize commitments to non-discriminatory trade policy, which threatens the very foundations of the trading system.

Themes of interconnectedness and interdependence highlight China's contribution to globalization, which has been enormous, especially in economy, trade, and investment where it is reshaping the global economy. In addition to economic cooperation, the China-ASEAN partnership has also strengthened political and security dialogue and even extended into cultural areas. This partnership has become a mature and multifaceted relationship that spans economics, politics, and security, impacting both regional and global trends.

How can economic diplomacy can bring about more understanding at the international level and what benefit does it provides in the current constellation of international relations? Economic diplomacy can be understood as the ability of entrepreneurial actors to build new bridges complementary to state foreign policy and the example of Sino-German economic relations shows that business provides real insight into China’s competence, exemplifying how mechanisms of cooperation can function effectively despite political divergences.

China has a complex relationship with MDBs as it is simultaneously one of their largest shareholders, one of their largest donors, one of their largest borrowers, and one of their largest recipients of contracts. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and other lending, China has also become the world’s largest bilateral lender to developing countries. It is also a major driver behind the AIIB and NDB, both of which have the potential to make a significant impact on the international financial system and provide lessons for established MDBs in their own operations and governance.

2023 is a year of change and challenge for China. What is crucial here is a return of geopolitical and geoeconomic risks, which will be highly important for policy makers while also having significant academic implications in analyzing policy measures in volatile macroeconomic trends. As a result, RMB internationalization faces an important turning point in 2023. The report of the 20th National Congress of Chinese Communist Party (CPC) calls for “promot[ing] the RMB internationalization in an orderly manner.” As China enters a new stage of development, it faces a high level of uncertainty in the geopolitical environment and has to make strategic adjustments in a timely and prudent manner as it works to reach its goal of accelerating RMB internationalization to raise market attention. We present the arguments in favor of the view that an unconventional strategy for the internationalization of the RMB is the best policy option for China.

Voices that decry a downturn in or ultimate downfall of globalisation seem to be gaining the upper hand as the world changes. Given this epochal shift, we need to think where to go from here. We should also consider what principles and paths should be followed to ensure globalisation serves humanity, and as a major beneficiary of globalisation, what role China can play. We propose a number of conceptual pathways and detailed recommendations for the next step in the evolution of globalisation.

China seeks to endorse multipolarity in a contested world, mitigate what it regards as the US-orchestrated “confinement,” and set the stage regionally for an extended sphere of Chinese influence. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on Beijing to navigate this path in a way that would bolster China’s global persona as a reliable and ethical frontrunner, while concurrently diminishing the perception of China as an escalating “hazard” to its neighbouring countries in Asia.

Global governance in its ideal form seems unlikely anytime soon given the turbulence pervading contemporary international affairs, but one bright spot is the rise of the “global political city”—an urban community that serves as a major node of governance, agenda setting, and/or resources for the world. Traditionally a “city of walls and gates”, Beijing is transitioning into one of the world’s most important global political cities with an increasingly vibrant idea industry. Beijing’s idea institutions and their understanding of global trends will ultimately be crucial in determining and clarifying China’s global role and its potential contributions to global governance.

Where are the great empires of the past? Babylon? Rome? They now exist only in museums and ancient ruins. The truth is even great nations rise and fall and any superpower today could be returned to ashes like so many great nations before. China is on the rise and has pursued a unique model of development, combining elements of socialism, market economics, and state-led investment that have enabled it to achieve rapid growth and overall stability. Part of its secret is in long-term planning and investment in infrastructure, high-tech industries, and education, but the success of the Chinese model of governance is rooted in the welfare of its population and a people-centered approach, ensuring continually improving standards of living and, thereby, strong public support.

This paper researches the relevance of the claims about the end of the current post-Cold War world order trying to set today’s catchphrase “the new world order” in a broader perspective than of the Ukraine war, judging that changes in the world order are still in an unfolding phase, and many of them are not clear. American unipolar power is not strong as it has been, but the new multipower global order has not been determined yet. In making the point that the world order should be changed evolutionary not through global conflict the paper is focusing on how and why the two leading global powers China and the USA have fundamentally different approaches to the world order, particularly to economic globalization and geopolitics. The paper claims that China’s approach to economic globalization, which is in line with the idea of more equal globalization, and its multilateral global initiatives and projects can be understood as factors that ensure the peaceful and gradual emancipation of the world order from geopolitical approaches that destabilize the world order. China is convinced that changes in the world order must be implemented slowly, through cooperation and rejection of hegemony and unipolarity. This paper shows that the USA, though a mature democracy and highly globalized country, now pursues protectionist rules and standards forming politics and events which could restore the world order to the pre-1990’s era. The USA’s engaging in current international politics has been featured by the weakening of its support to current economic globalization and by the strengthening of the USA’s tradition of unipolarism. They both cause geopolitical instability in Europe and Asia-Pacific. The paper suggests that the USA’s approach is accepted in the EU, though it is not yet dominant, and influencing the behavior of the EU in international relations and its relations with China. It concludes that tensions in the relationships between China and the USA cannot persist for much longer in its present form and their relationships need to be rebalanced in the interests of the world order strategic stability and global economy.

In the past six years, the USA and China have become embroiled in a trade war, a tech war, and now a new Cold War. Both nations should take their relationship risks far more seriously than they are doing so. Just as human pathology tells us that relationship conflicts cannot be resolved with one side imposing its system, its values, on the other, the same is true of nations. In that spirit, this article offers a three-part plan of Sino-American conflict resolution that breaks from the dysfunctional approach of the past.

There has been a pronounced shift in dynamics between China and the USA, towards one where competition is now the defining character of their relationship. Yet, growing great power competition does not mean that other international actors do not have agency to shape their strategic circumstances. With a focus on Southeast Asia, we highlight two cases of this agency. The first is ASEAN-China cooperation in COVID-19 pandemic recovery, while the second looks at China-Singapore cooperation to build a more secure regional order. Both ASEAN and Singapore have well-known, robust partnerships with the USA. Yet their relationship with the USA has not stopped ASEAN and Singapore from exercising their prerogative to work with China—when it suits—to improve the circumstances of the region. The cases show that the choices of Southeast Asian states are not necessarily defined by the US-China competition.

China is the largest developing country in the world, and Africa has the largest number of developing countries. Shared past experiences and similar aims and goals have brought China and Africa closer together and will contribute to making them part of a community with a shared future. In this spirit, cooperation between China and Africa through FOCAC, South-South Cooperation or the BRICS framework, has proven African wisdom that “If you want to go fast, go alone and if you want to go far go together.”

We are living in a world that is now severely geo-politically fractured, not just fragmented and, without a major turnaround, this condition is likely to worsen, with serious consequences. The opening up of the world to trade and commerce in the 1980’s and 1990’s looked for a long while as a win–win proposition for all, lifting millions from poverty in the developing world, but there were both winners and losers with inequalities arising within and across national borders. Meanwhile, the hollowing out of some advanced economies due to unfettered globalization has fuelled fears of the rise of the ‘other’. We must revisit and embrace a ‘dialogue between civilisations’ that goes deeper and higher than nation-state geopolitics and that respects and regards the ‘other’ in a renewed spirit of ‘co-operative globalization’.

Global governance should support a system that enables every country, regardless of size or wealth, an opportunity to participate and gain benefits. In a fragmented world, it is imperative for all countries to work toward improving global governance and supply chain networks. China has been working toward this through global initiatives like the BRI, GDI, GSI and GCI. Meanwhile, the concept of Malaysia Madani approaches bilateral and multilateral engagements with ethics, sincerity and integrity to achieve an independent, inclusive, peaceful, and prosperous Malaysia and Greater Asia. However, this concept is also fundamentally a universal philosophy or approach that can bridge the East and the West.

Far from being only a watershed moment in European history, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has become a global tempest. Beyond economics, the war has shaken the very foundations of global governance. With the international economic and political order under siege on multiple fronts, the age of permacrisis is increasingly marked by the deterioration of international cooperation at a time when all countries face common and existential challenges. In a world that is sliding into a more contested environment where state power and economic security are becoming the predominant norms, a “new multilateralism” is needed now more than ever. Against this backdrop, the ability of the EU to act together to address the triple challenge it faces (watershed moment of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, fundamental structural transformations, ongoing challenge of the permacrisis) will determine its global position and its power to shape global dynamics.

This paper explores the role of corporations in the increasingly fragmented global governance landscape, focusing on five major pressure points driving the fragmentation. It argues that corporations can act as policy entrepreneurs and help set the agenda of global governance, while at the same time highlighting the restrictions on the role of corporations in global governance. Drawing from theoretical assumptions about critical junctures, uncertainty, and institutional change, this paper seeks to initiate a more nuanced debate on the transformation of global governance in the aftermath of multiple crises.

The drive to restrict access to the Internet, to shadow-ban users and to crackdown on international exchanges in the name of “national security,” around the world has vastly reduced our ability to come together to address common concerns. We need an international charter or constitution to determine what is true and real, who controls institutions and organizations, as well as intellectual and spiritual priorities. This would help create a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace, ensuring that the citizens of the Earth are in control and have access to reliable information.

Globalization has both strengthened global connections and contributed to fragmentation in international relations, resulting in regional trade blocks and a multipolar world. China’s contribution to global governance is mainly economic, but with its rising international status, China has begun to shoulder more responsibilities in a world consumed with increased social tensions and political polarization, democratic decline, and geopolitical splits. Ultimately, could China contribute to the creation of a new form of global governance?

The previous international order is being shaken by increasing tensions and a change in the balance between geoeconomics and geopolitics, resulting in less of a rules-based system more of a force-based system, which obliges us to consider new paths. Issues of environment, minority rights or intergenerational accountability need to be a part of new collective ambitions, rights and responsibilities. While a ‘tabula rasa’ approach would probably be unrealistic, a solution originating in the Westphalian model and the role of Europe’s multilateral experience are the most likely pathways for a viable solution.