Vladimir Norov Photo: Courtesy of Vladimir Norov

Editor's Note:

At the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus" Meeting in North China's port city of Tianjin in September 2025, Chinese President Xi Jinping formally proposed the Global Governance Initiative. With that proposal, the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI), the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) and the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) together form a package of global public goods that China offers as a response to address global challenges.

The GDI provides the material foundation; the GSI safeguards a peaceful environment; the GCI builds a consensus of values; and the GGI supplies institutional and procedural guarantees. 

Through these reflections on the questions of "what kind of world to build and how to build it," President Xi has established a comprehensive framework for action. This framework drives the practice of building a community with a shared future for humanity, contributing Chinese wisdom and solutions to the preservation of world peace and development, and the advancement of human civilization.

Because of the timing of its publication, the book series Xi Jinping: The Governance of China fully documents the conceptual depth and practical progress of the GDI, GSI and GCI. In Volume V of the series, Chapter 15 is titled "A community with a shared future for humanity." Volume V also contains multiple references to the idea of "global governance." The four initiatives should therefore be read as an integrated whole. Viewed as a unified framework, the four initiatives form a "four-in-one" interactive structure: development as the foundation, security as the guarantee, civilization as the bond, and governance as the coordinating mechanism - all serving the overarching objective of building a community with a shared future for humanity.

In the 19th installment of the special series "Decoding the Book of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China," the Global Times (GT), along with the People's Daily Overseas Edition, continues to invite Chinese and foreign scholars, translators of Xi's works, practitioners with firsthand experience, and international readers to delve into the logical connections between the four global initiatives and the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity, and to discuss their practical significance and contemporary value.

In the 19th article of the "Readers' Reflections" column, Global Times (GT) talked to Vladimir Norov (Norov), former secretary general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and recipient of the 2025 Chinese Government Friendship Award about why China's concepts and initiatives have resonated so widely, and why Chinese solutions are particularly actionable and deliverable.

GT: President Xi Jinping has put forward the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI), the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), and the Global Governance Initiative (GGI). These initiatives together help reshape the global governance landscape. Drawing on your own experience, how do you understand the profound implications of China's four landmark global initiatives?

Norov: China's four global initiatives - on development, security, civilization, and governance - can be seen as an endeavor to form a comprehensive framework for international cooperation. At the new historical stage, they will contribute to shaping a world characterized by lasting peace, comprehensive security, shared prosperity, openness, inclusiveness, and sustainable development.

Development as the foundation: Through projects such as the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, the initiatives stimulate economic growth, improve infrastructure connectivity, and contribute to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, thereby creating a material basis for shared prosperity. Security as the guarantee: The promotion of common, comprehensive, and sustainable security through dialogue and cooperation helps reduce conflict and creates a stable environment for development.

Civilizational dialogue as the connecting link: Encouraging intercultural exchange and respect for the diversity of development paths strengthens mutual understanding and trust among peoples, shaping an inclusive global agenda. Governance as the mechanism: Facilitating a more just and balanced system of global governance, including cooperation in new fields (AI, cyberspace), helps jointly address global challenges, including climate change.

The strength of China's initiatives lies in the combination of strategic vision with concrete projects that deliver measurable benefits to partners (as in the case of Uzbekistan). By respecting sovereignty and multilateralism, they offer a practical roadmap for a more just and sustainable world order. As noted by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the four global initiatives proposed by China "are totally compatible with the UN Charter." These initiatives serve as pragmatic and constructive solutions to contemporary global challenges. 

In diplomatic practice, the value of such frameworks is manifested not so much in declarative formulations as in their ability to establish a platform for negotiations and equal dialogue among states with different development models and different political positions. In this sense, these initiatives can be regarded as an instrument for structuring the global agenda around the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and the sovereign equality of states. They broke away from the outdated paradigm in which major powers dominate and smaller nations are forced to depend on, while promoting collective actions with equal attitude and systematic mindset and ensuring that every participant becomes a beneficiary of development.

GT: Building a community with a shared future for humanity is a crucial diplomatic and global governance concept that is emphasized and elaborated on in Volumes I to V of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China. The four global initiatives proposed by President Xi form an integrated interactive framework where development serves as the foundation, security as the safeguard, civilization as the bond, and governance as the coordination mechanism. This framework offers Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions for mitigating global risks and improving the global governance system, while also serving the overall goal of building a community with a shared future for humanity. Among the world's major countries, why have China's concepts and initiatives resonated so widely, and why are Chinese solutions particularly actionable and deliverable?

Norov: The concept of building a community with a shared future for humanity and the four global initiatives put forward by President Xi have received a broad response and high recognition from the international community because they deeply respond to the common aspirations of the peoples of the world and the shared requirements of the times. Chinese concepts and proposals consistently adhere to a people-centered approach and to the principle of consultation, joint construction, and shared benefits, offering practical and feasible pathways for addressing global challenges.

China's official data show that more than 100 countries and many international organizations including the UN have supported and participated in the Global Development Initiative. Additionally, more than 80 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative. Moreover, the Global Security Initiative has been clearly written into over 140 bilateral and multilateral documents. The Global Governance Initiative, upon its proposal, has immediately gained extensive attention and recognition from the international community.

During my tenure as the SCO secretary general, I have witnessed China's role as a model of mutually beneficial cooperation. Over the past two decades, China has strongly supported infrastructure development in Central Asian countries, particularly in the transportation sector. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway under construction is expected to cut the current journey by 900 kilometers and reduce transport time by seven to eight days. This will boost the development of landlocked Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan. Cooperation between China and its Central Asian neighbors has set a fine example of working together with mutual respect, mutual benefit, and win-win outcomes.

Practice has demonstrated that Chinese solutions - such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China-Europe railway services, and the China-Central Asia cooperation format - not only deliver tangible development outcomes to participating countries, but also make an important contribution to the maintenance of peace and development worldwide, demonstrating the advantages of the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. China's achievements are the result of the correct leadership of the Chinese government, and we are confident that government decisions will continue to make an even greater contribution to the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

GT: Due to the publication timeline, Chapter 15 of Volume V of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China themed "A Community with a Shared Future for Humanity" mentioned the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative. The term "global governance" is also mentioned many times in this volume. The international community is undergoing the most profound turbulence and transformation since the end of the Cold War, with persistent and worsening peace deficits and security deficits, posing severe challenges to global security governance. In your opinion, what are the implications of China's four global initiatives for the world to collectively address current challenges?

Norov: The contemporary international system is indeed undergoing a period of profound transformation, as evidenced not only by rising levels of conflict but also by the weakening of trust in mechanisms of multilateral regulation. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the global military spending reached $2.72 trillion in 2024, its highest level since the end of the Cold War, which clearly reflects the intensification of tensions and the deficit of trust among states.

Under these conditions, the potential value of the four initiatives lies in shaping a more comprehensive response to challenges - not only reacting to crises, but also addressing their root causes through development, dialogue, and institutional reforms. We see that the emphasis on global governance reflects the international community's demand for increasing the effectiveness of decision-making procedures, primarily within the framework of the UN and international financial institutions, where the issue of fair representation of countries is becoming increasingly acute.