Inherited from Chinese thinking about harmony, the idea of a community with a shared future for humanity presents itself as an alternative for global governance.
Buyers and exhibitors discuss at the 3rd International Sourcing Conference in Linyi Commercial City (Shandong), October 10, 2025.
In January 2017, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Chinese President Xi Jinping raised the concept of a community with a shared future for humanity, asking five fundamental questions: What happened to the world? How should we react? Where do we come from? Where are we today? And where are we going?
These essential questions are rooted in the profound transformations that the contemporary world is experiencing, as well as in the major challenges and crises that threaten the planet and its populations. They also reflect an understanding that the rapid development of global productive forces requires corresponding changes in social relations, developments which often encounter strong resistance.
Addressing deficits
In a subsequent speech at the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, held in Beijing in May 2017, Xi identified three major deficits facing humanity: a peace deficit, a development deficit and a governance deficit. In March 2019, he added a fourth central element to international relations: the trust deficit.
Faced with these deficits, which constitute the basis of many major crises facing the world today, Mr. Xi proposed, on behalf of China, four complementary initiatives intended to contribute to building a community with a shared future for humanity, namely, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilizations Initiative and the Global Governance Initiative.
The Chinese concept of a community with a shared future embodies what Mr. Xi described, during the World Economic Forum (Davos Agenda Online) in January 2021, as “common values of humanity”: peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom.
Referring to widely shared notions, Xi stressed the importance of avoiding any “ideological bias.” He thus implicitly opposed the tendency of Western powers to assimilate these universal values to specifically Western institutions, then to seek to impose them on the rest of the world. Democracy, understood as the power of the people, can in fact take multiple forms, just like national development trajectories.
The democratic character of a country cannot be evaluated solely through institutional models, but according to its capacity to concretely improve the life of its entire population. The positions and proposals put forward by Mr. Xi thus reflect non-Western approaches to national and international issues.
In February 2021, shortly after taking office, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken made numerous speeches and interviews in which he used a recurring formula: “The world does not organize itself. When we are not engaged, when we are not leading, two things can happen: either another country tries to take our place, probably in a way that does not serve our interests and our values, or no one does and then there is chaos. »
One of the fundamental assumptions of Western liberalism is the idea that individuals and nations act primarily according to their own interests and are incapable of agreeing on the common good. In this context, a national state is necessary to impose order within the country. Internationally, the absence of a supranational state leads to a situation of anarchy, where powerful states seek hegemony to protect their security and defend their interests. This reasoning is based, once again, on the generalization and supposed universality of a historically Western experience.
A young Cypriot (2nd from left) poses in front of his work which won 1st prize in a photography and short film competition for international youth, in Fuzhou (Fujian), November 18, 2025.
A different vision
Historically, East Asia has had a polycentric system based on gongsheng (symbiosis), characterized by a set of principles, norms and codes of conduct governing relations between states. In this framework, large and small countries found their place, favoring voluntary and tributary exchanges over several millennia, as well as peaceful coexistence.
The central concept of Chinese international relations is that of harmony. Traditional Chinese and East Asian visions favor a harmonious international order, based on the avoidance of conflict through the pursuit of shared interests, mutual respect and non-interference. These conceptions are rooted in key notions such as “all under heaven” (tianxia), relationality (guanxi) and symbiosis.
Symbiosis emphasizes the existence of the self, individual or nation, in relationship with others, not in isolation. Guanxi values reciprocity and relational interest, echoing the adage of the philosopher Confucius: “If you want to establish yourself, help others to establish themselves; If you want to succeed, help others succeed. » From this perspective, the Chinese vision of the world is based on the idea that the success of a country can only be ensured by the success of all.
In December 1972, reflecting on China’s relations with the world, Chairman Mao Zedong revisited three ploys originally addressed to the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), proposing to “dig tunnels deep, store grain everywhere, and never seek hegemony.” In the updated version, tunnels referred to air raid shelters. Chairman Mao relied on a traditional distinction between the sovereign who rules by benevolence and justice, and the hegemon who rules by force. He insisted that China should never seek hegemony, a position that Mr. Xi still reaffirms today.
In proposing the four initiatives to address the international deficits of peace, development, trust and governance, Xi drew on Chinese cultural traditions and wisdom, combined with Chinese socialism, to chart a course based on peaceful coexistence, mutual respect, non-interference, dialogue, cooperation and shared and equitable development.
Stressing the conformity of this vision with the Charter of the United Nations and with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, proposed by China and formalized in 1954 (mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit), Mr. Xi recalled that these values are widely shared, even if they are not always put into practice.
By repeatedly asserting that China does not seek hegemony, Mr. Xi also advances the idea that the world does not need a hegemon, a “global Leviathan” and that the domination of one country by another is, in reality, an obstacle to world peace, global development and a stable international order.
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