We live in a new era of new possibilities. Chinese President Xi Jinping has described this new era as one featuring “changes unseen in a century.”
These challenges stem from a confluence of major events: China’s rise as a major country advocating a more equitable multipolar world order; the impacts of climate change; the arrival of transformative technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing; the rapid onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution; and the return of what is known as “great power competition,” among others.
Optimism despite change
In the early decades of the last century, the Western capitalist world engaged in fierce competition for imperial spoils, leading to World War I (1914-18). Capitalism soon faced its second global crisis, the Great Depression (1929-39). This period marked the beginning of China’s modern era, ushered in by the May Fourth Movement in 1919.
The movement erupted after the Treaty of Versailles betrayed Chinese interests by handing control of Shandong Province from Germany to Japan, despite promises from European powers to return it to China. This transfer of power had devastating consequences, leading to years of brutal occupation and atrocities by Japan.
In this climate, the Communist Party of China was founded in Shanghai in 1921, beginning the long struggle for liberation and national rejuvenation. Today, with this historical perspective, we can see that China has overcome even greater challenges than those it currently faces. Over the past century, China learned to navigate difficult situations without yielding, and today, it is increasingly setting the direction—one that promotes greater international harmony.
The West greets these developments pessimistically and girds itself for increasing competition and conflict. China takes a much more optimistic approach: Instead of building small blocs for containment and suppression, it advances multilateral organizations that acknowledge differences while emphasizing common ground.
Through the Belt and Road Initiative, China builds solidarity with other Global South countries, advocating win-win solutions. (The Belt and Road Initiative is an initiative to boost connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes—Ed.)
The Global Security Initiative and the Global Development Initiative promote peace and development, reconciling longtime foes like Iran and Saudi Arabia and different Palestinian factions, and offering the same to Russia and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Global Civilizations Initiative advances mutual recognition and respect, sharing wisdom across cultures. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization brings Asian players to the table to address regional economic and security concerns collectively.
Through BRICS, a group of emerging economies originally consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, China helps create solidarity among emerging markets, establishing a new, more equitable paradigm for security and economic development and challenging the longstanding institutional privileges and discriminatory policies of developed countries, typically exemplified by the Group of Seven.
Critics of this new approach, particularly in the West, remain vocal. American foreign policy expert John Mearsheimer stands out among them. His theory of “offensive realism” argues that powerful nations naturally seek to dominate others, treating global chaos as a constant and viewing major powers as exploiting problems for their own benefit. Of course, Mearsheimer—a septuagenarian American—shaped his worldview during the Cold War, influenced by the era and by the simple fact that the U.S. is still the world’s leading military power.
If Mearsheimer was from a less powerful country, would he be so quick to normalize conflict or the dominance of the powerful over the weak? Isn’t it fair to question whether this international system normalizes chaos merely to justify dominance over others?
Moreover, if Mearsheimer were Chinese, might he better understand the need for a new paradigm—particularly a cooperative model that could address global challenges like climate change? Wouldn’t he then recognize that the Western model has proven unsustainable, causing both ecological damage and political-economic instability? Why can’t he see the crises in Gaza and Ukraine as symptoms of a failing system rather than as proof of inevitable “great power competition?”
BRICS wisdom
The recent BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, from October 22 to 24, which produced the Kazan Declaration, demonstrated the emergence of a fairer world order. With United Nations Secretary General António Guterres in attendance, it offered a new paradigm of positive possibilities, including efforts to foster de-dollarization.
Altogether, these developments represent the collective efforts of member states comprising about 30 percent of the world’s land surface and more than 40 percent of the global population, including the world’s leading emerging markets with the greatest potential for future growth. Additionally, more than 30 countries have expressed interest or applied to join. Despite coming from different civilizations and regions, these nations share a desire for relations based on non-interference, equality and mutual benefit.
The Chinese vision of win-win approaches to achieving a shared future for humanity, China’s commitment to a more equitable multipolar world and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence)—these values also increasingly describe the shared aspirations of the Global South, serving as major catalysts for a fairer world order and a new solidarity, represented by BRICS and similar projects.
This more balanced world order is what critics in Washington and elsewhere reject, twisting facts to perpetuate their privileged positions. But those days are ending. The new internationalism of a human community committed to a brighter future has matured and reached critical mass—as Kazan demonstrated. –The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
