To translate its well-articulated vision into practice, Beijing must flesh out concrete mechanics, starting with institutional design
3-MIN READ3-MINTony ZhaoTony Zhao is a freelance writer based in Beijing and London. Published: 9:30am, 2 Sep 2026China has spent years articulating its preferred principles for the world order. In June, it went a step further, bringing many of them together in a white paper on global governance and setting out how its Global Governance Initiative should translate principles into practice. Two ambitions sat side by side: an “equal and orderly multipolar world” and a “universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalisation”.The timing is telling. World leaders will gather in New York this month for the 81st United Nations General Assembly under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation”.
The difficult word in China’s formulation is no longer “multipolar”; it is “orderly”.
Multipolarity itself is becoming easier to imagine. Middle powers increasingly hedge rather than choose sides, seeking more room to bargain among multiple centres of power. Such diffusion of power, however, is far from the natural company of order.
The problem of the emerging order is therefore not convergence, but sustained coexistence.
