A Dialogue of Civilizations to Heal a Fractured World—Global Issues and the Role of China

Abstract

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’.

A Fractured, not just Fragmented, World

In addressing the theme of how to enhance global governance, and how to encourage China’s role in particular, my starting position is framed by this observation: 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 and result in serious consequences.

It feels like a ‘hinge moment in history’ for the global commons, as Larry Summers has called it, or in the words of Pope Francis, it is the ‘end of an epoch, not just an era’.

Recently, the 2023 State of the World Roundtable convened by the Global Foundation was addressed by many eminent figures from across the globe. The opening expert presentation from Bain & Co suggested that the past 80 or so years, since the end of World War Two, has been relatively benign in terms of global stability, at least compared to the 100 or so years before that. [Bain & Co presentation to the ‘State of the World’ Roundtable February 2023]

Fig. 1

If our world seems more turbulent than at any time in living memory, it's because it is

Co-operation and collaboration have been the hallmark of recent decades and have underpinned economic globalization, which drove increased global prosperity. This recent era of prosperity and relative peace, however, is rapidly giving way to fracturing, de-globalization, containment and, potentially, conflict.

The global Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have exacerbated underlying geopolitical forces, which have been coalescing for several years into a toxic cocktail of multilateral mistrust and political withdrawal behind national borders.

Co-operation is now increasingly difficult to achieve on matters that affect the global commons, which do not respect national borders and require effective forms of global governance and collaboration.

Globalization and Its Malcontents

The opening up of the world to trade and commerce in the 1980s and 1990s looked for a long while as a win–win proposition for all. Millions were elevated from poverty in the developing world, most notably in China, through capital investment and corresponding exports and consumption by the West. This was a remarkable achievement.

Yet, these unprecedented flows of global capital and goods did not allow all boats to rise evenly, instead producing winners and losers. Inequalities, both real and perceived, arose within and across national borders. The hollowing out of some advanced economies as a consequence of unfettered globalization has fuelled fears of the rise of the ‘other’.

While still heavily reliant to a large extent on their mutual interdependence, a political chasm has opened up between the ‘West’, principally the United States and the ‘East’, principally China.

The dividing line over so-called national values, of democracies versus autocracies, has now become an important rallying cry in the West. Exhortations towards ‘re-shoring’ and ‘friend-shoring’ are now influencing business actions, with the consequent impact of nations pulling further apart and security considerations trumping economic rationality.

Beyond the US-China rivalry, however, is another powerful and intersecting force. Asia, more generally and the Global South overall, have risen considerably in economic significance that is as yet unmatched by their geopolitical weight. The Global South wants a greater say and a greater share than the existing world powers are, for now at least, willing to concede.

A world of competing blocs aligned around the two great powers may not fully emerge, if multiple other nations prefer to have their say and express their intentions to work with both the US and China, at least on those on matters which affect the global commons—peace, stability, a sustainable and prosperous planet.

A World Order Out of Alignment

There is a strong and emerging sense in global affairs that the way in which global governance has been organized for the past 80 or so years, since the end of the Second World War, is no longer fit for purpose and needs to be re-made. The old order has yet to give way to a new, still-emerging order that is more genuinely reflective of contemporary and economic power.

The United Nations, as it is presently structured, is unable to resolve many of the issues it was designed to address. The Bretton Woods institutions that have overseen global finance and development matters over the past 80 years are struggling and in need of structural reform, to reflect the realities of the current and emerging era.

If it is in fact ‘a hinge moment in history’, as Larry Summers suggests, or ‘the end of an epoch, not just an era’, according to Pope Francis, is it possible to confront the scale of the challenges facing the world, in order to make fundamental reforms to the institutional systems of global co-operation through peaceful means?

And, if that is the intention, are those in power, in the leading nation states, willing to work together for such a common purpose? The alternative—failure and a second cold war, or even worse, a hot war—is too horrible to contemplate.

Muddling through, with incremental changes, may simply defer the day of reckoning, by which time those with power are likely to be less influential in bringing about change than they are today.

Is there, in a short-term, a way through, to head off crisis and to bring to the table all parties of influence, in a genuine process of co-design? I certainly hope so.

Working Towards Effective Governance of the Global Commons

Right now, based on current indications, it appears unlikely that governments alone will agree to take the lead in working together to achieve the dramatic global governance reforms that will be required.

Yes, there have been some important recent gains such as the recent Global Oceans Treaty to help preserve the high seas of the world. But these are the exception and not the norm, and international co-operation now seems much more unlikely.

Leadership for major systemic change may need to come from multiple actors, including but not limited to enlightened governments. Creative middle and small powers, acting together, are capable of having weight, as seen through the Bridgetown Initiative of the Prime Minister of Barbados, in relation to action on climate change.

However, governments are not the only actors in the global governance space and it may be increasingly necessary for other voices to coalesce, in helping governments and inter-governmental processes to move further and faster.

In this regard, the alignment of global non-government actors towards common cause would represent a powerful voice. This impact would be even greater if these actors, drawn from diverse backgrounds and traditions, could align.

Imagine if it were possible to design processes to bring together leaders from across the globe, from business, academia, faiths, non-government organizations, institutions, and civil society, along with governments, to seek common agreement about pathways for systemic reform at the global level?

In fact, this work is going on in many places in various forms, including loose and tight coalitions and affiliations. It appears however that this work, while important, is not of itself sufficient, and that renewed, more globally impactful global governance reform efforts are required.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals as a Stepping Stone

A major issue that impairs efforts for global governance reform is the lack of an agreed destination, or a set of outcomes that can be committed to, shared across humanity and measured and held to account along the way.

A partial exception to this are the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, which have been agreed by all governments, setting targets for the achievement of 17 goals in the service of humanity. It was quite a remarkable effort to win such an agreement under the UN banner.

However, while these goals are absolutely worthy and serve as common, short-term guideposts for humanity, the responsibility for their achievement and enforcement sits in a kind of soft ether of accountability.

Similarly, the Paris Agreement for action on global climate change is struggling to land on accountability and delivery mechanisms, not least of which is the matter of what financial compensation the developed world will agree to pay the developing world for past emissions—an issue about which the Global South has raised its voice.

One small act of genius on the part of Italy, which took the helm of the G20 in 2021, was the agreement for China and the United States to chair an upgraded working group on climate change under the G20 banner. However, while this has wavered and is now re-instated, with the great powers nominally working together, genuine leadership and progress is not yet evident.

These are not just matters of collective inter-governmental will, as important as this is, they also highlight the failure or at least the inadequacy of current international systems. For example, major global investors are increasingly willing to make very large-scale commitments of investments to address and help turn around the devasting trajectory of global climate change. They find, however that the international financial system, as it is presently structured, is inadequate for this purpose, such that the investors’ plans are frustrated and, in some cases, through inaction, put their own business models at risk.

An Instructive Lesson

The Global Foundation originated in Australia 25 years ago, supported by the commitment and funding efforts of Australian and global investors, business and academic leaders, also civil society and non-government actors, all working in concert with respective governments of the day. The Foundation’s purpose was and is to strive, together for the global common good, rising above all forms of boundaries, whether real or imagined.

Along the journey, the Foundation and its many supporters and allies forged alignment around some of the most pressing global issues, never putting itself in the foreground, rather preferring to lend its skills in support of alignment and encouragement of many more powerful actors.

One example relates to China’s rise and its global engagement. For more than 20 years, the Foundation has worked closely with China as it has emerged on the world stage, particularly in relation to matters of global engagement and global governance. A highlight was the decision by China to form the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2014.

The Foundation was ready from the beginning to assist China as it took on this new formative role for an international institution and helped bring together many nations that in turn lent their support to the creation of the AIIB.

One of the pivotal moments in this early stage formation of the AIIB was at a forum in Beijing co-sponsored by the Foundation and addressed by China’s Finance Minister, who said: ‘This bank will be world’s best practice. But who’s best practice are we referring to?”.

This was the precise moment when China, not only for its own sake but also for the developing and emerging world, was politely challenging the norms that had governed the international financial development system since the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1945.

Here was a direct—and in my view—entirely appropriate challenge issued by China to the prevailing wisdom that had underpinned international development for many decades—the so-called ‘rules-based order’ primarily determined by the West, albeit benignly, in its own image in the wake of victory in World War Two.

China and for that matter, the Global South as a whole, was suggesting that the principles and structures that had delivered the rules-based order of the Bretton Woods system needed revisiting, not just for tinkering, but perhaps for more fundamental overhaul.

Of course, these voices were not listened to by some great powers, who chose not to support China’s leadership of the AIIB. This example helps, in part, to explain the imbroglio we have in world affairs today.

What Is Needed—A Common Destination

It is not possible to undo what has been done, or not done, as the case may be.

It is however possible and, I contend, essential, to look forward to the future with boldness and clarity and to be unafraid to confront and rebuild international systems of co-operation that will impact a whole new era.

Among the barriers to success in a fundamental rebuild of the world order is the ambition of states themselves, in world that operates as if nation states are the only or most powerful consideration in governing the world as it has been in world affairs for nearly 400 years.

Hence, all the systems of legitimate international governance today are built around nation states and the sharing of power between them.

Imagine if it might be possible to step outside this whole paradigm and to think of the world—our planet—as one whole, unitary system that required at least some forms of singular, joined-up thinking and actions to follow.

Imagine if it would be possible to step outside thinking of our global future as a being achieved by a process of incremental decisions and instead recognizing that step-changes are required to successfully arrive at a sustainable future.

Might it be possible to start at the other end, to imagine and possibly agree a shared future destination for humanity, built around agreed shared values? And if it were possible to agree on at least some of the principles of this destination, and to then work backwards to today, to determine pathways, shared or alternate, to get there, rather than the other way around, as at the present—which is proving to be unviable.

Could we conceive of shared and agreed language, around terms such as ‘universalism’, which is promoted by French President Emmanuel Macron as a more holistic concept than that of ‘multilateralism’ as we know it at present, with its implications of trade-offs and agreements only between nation states.

Would it be possible to imagine a universalism which has at its core the notion of a pact for ‘global human security’, to embrace all facets of the human condition?

And from this, might we imagine such a framing statement for our global future as a ‘global declaration of interdependence’, that takes and elevates the principles that informed the United Nations at its founding and created new forms of power and decision-sharing that are much more reflective of today’s changed world?

One thing is for sure, in the eyes of the Global Foundation and many of its much more influential interlocutors—we cannot continue doing things as we have.

Shared Pathways to Seek Common Goals and Shared Pathways to the Future

In recent years, the Global Foundation has called for the need to revisit and embrace a ‘dialogue between civilisations’, a form of continuous exchange that goes deeper and higher than nation-state geopolitics and that respects and regards the ‘other’—through appreciation of different cultures, traditions, and values.

Multiple faiths, working together and with other belief systems, have an important role to play in this process. That’s why the Foundation itself, over the past 10 or so years, has brought together leaders from large and small powers across the world, including China and the US, as well as representatives from business, academia, institutions and civil society, meeting together with faith leaders, including the Pope at the Vatican in Rome.

As our Global Advisory Council chairman has said, if the majority of people in the world identify with some form of organized faith, why wouldn’t we work with them and include them in our conversations?

In June 2023, the Foundation partnered with the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican and with Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, to co-sponsor a ‘dialogue between civilisations’, around the Sustainable Development Goals. The dialogue included China and other emerging nations, along with those of the developed West, which were represented by top global scholars and thought-leaders. This project was intended to build common ground through mutual understanding of great civilisations, their ancient and modern histories, and their overlapping commonalities as they impact the global common good.

Building upon this work, the Foundation is planning to convene a further dialogue between global leaders in Rome later in the year, at which the thorniest of questions about an imagined future world order can be discussed, freely. We hope that it will be possible to re-make globalization as positive force for good, and in a form which is genuinely transformative, fair and inclusive, built upon a sustainable prosperity. World leaders have supported this call for a renewed form of what the Global Foundation terms ‘co-operative globalisation’.

We hope that, through dialogue and collaboration, it will be possible to shape an informal road map, for many affiliates and others to consider and adopt, where possible. China will be always in the room for these conversations.

Overlapping with the above are the continuing efforts by many partners, through formal channels, such as the G20, which India leads this year and also less-formal channels, such as the Assisi Accord for climate action and Paris Peace Forum.

This is a pivotal moment in world history, when it is possible to foresee the worst of outcomes for humanity without strong and positive interventions, but these will require an unprecedented effort and imagination and a spirit of collective human generosity. Are we as citizens of the world, up to the task of acting ambitiously together? The Global Foundation hopes and firmly believes so.