The world is undergoing a profound transformation. This change cannot be understood solely through the lens of great-power rivalry, or of the domestic political and economic adjustments under way within the West. A more durable and structural trend is also at work: the collective rise of the Global South. Developing countries, long positioned at the margins of the international system, are becoming central actors in the reshaping of the global order and the reform of global governance.
The rise of the Global South is not simply an economic story, nor the success of a few emerging markets. It reflects simultaneous shifts in the distribution of power, the functioning of the international system, the geography of technology and industry, the narrative of modernization, and the political consciousness of non-Western societies. Countries that were once mainly rule-takers, aid recipients, and objects of governance are increasingly becoming rule-shapers, providers of public goods, and stabilizers of order.
This transformation is pushing global governance into a new phase of rebalancing. Such rebalancing does not mean overturning the existing international system or replacing one hegemon with another. It means adjusting global institutions, rules, development agendas, and the provision of public goods to reflect the growing weight and the legitimate aspirations of the Global South. The goal is a system that is more equitable, more inclusive, and more sustainable. China occupies a distinctive place in this process. It is both an important member of the Global South and a major force in world modernization. Through its development path, its international cooperation, and its global-governance initiatives, China has offered experience and public goods to developing countries seeking modernization, participation in governance, and strategic autonomy.
SUBHEAD: A Central Thread in World Politics
The first way to understand today’s changing world is to look at the distribution of power. Over recent decades, the international balance has shifted markedly. Multipolarity has advanced, driven in large part by the rapid development of emerging markets and developing economies. China, India, and countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America have seized the opportunities created by globalization, using industrialization, urbanization, trade, infrastructure development, industrial upgrading, and institutional reform to raise their standing in the world economy.
China is the most striking example. Since reform and opening up, it has sustained rapid growth over a long period and become one of the largest contributors to global economic growth. More broadly, measured in purchasing-power-parity terms, Global South economies now account for a substantial and growing share of world output. This demonstrates that the global economy is no longer shaped only by a small group of advanced Western economies. The population, market potential, natural resources, industrial capacity, and technology-application scenarios of the Global South are being converted into real international influence.
The second change concerns the international system itself. For decades, global rules, standards, and agendas were largely set by the advanced Western countries. Many multilateral institutions claimed universality, yet in practice the representation and decision-making influence of developing countries remained limited. As their aggregate power has grown, Global South countries have become less willing simply to accept the existing rules. They now seek a greater role in setting agendas, making rules, and reforming institutions. This demand is not inherently confrontational. It is a response to long-standing structural imbalance. Development deficits, infrastructure gaps, inadequate climate finance, the digital divide, debt distress, and weak public-health capacity are all issues that affect the Global South most directly. If global governance fails to reflect these priorities, it cannot be fully legitimate, or fully effective.
The third shift lies in technology and industry. The advanced economies still possess major advantages in basic research, core technologies, and high-end manufacturing. Yet China, India, and other developing economies have made rapid progress in the digital economy, artificial intelligence, green energy, mobile payments, e-commerce, communications infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing. The older pattern, in which a few Western countries largely determined the direction of global technology and industry, is being eroded.
Equally important, Global South countries are not merely followers of technology. They are also key arenas for its future application. The digital and green revolutions require vast markets, dense populations, infrastructure expansion, and room for industrial transformation. Artificial intelligence, clean energy, smart agriculture, telemedicine, digital finance, and climate-adaptation technologies will all find major uses across the developing world. The future of technology will increasingly be shaped not only in the laboratories and boardrooms of the West, but by the needs and practices of the Global South.
The fourth shift is ideational. For a long time, modernization was equated with Westernization—and often with Americanization. Many non-Western societies were pushed to the margins of the international system: economically dependent, politically constrained, and culturally insecure. Colonialism and the unequal international division of labor produced not only material underdevelopment but also intellectual and psychological dependence.
That narrative is now changing. More Global South countries have entered the modernization process on their own terms and achieved visible success. Their experience demonstrates that modernization does not have only one institutional model, one development path, or one civilizational form. Countries can draw on their own histories, cultures, social conditions, and stages of development to pursue paths suited to their national realities. China’s experience is especially significant. It shows that a large, non-Western country with deep historical traditions and complex development conditions can modernize along an autonomous path while participating deeply in the world economy. That success has strengthened confidence across much of the Global South in indigenous paths, cultures, and institutional choices. The rise of the Global South is therefore not merely a shift in economic weight. It is a deeper transformation in global politics, governance, technology, industry, and the narratives of modernization. It is one of the central threads running through the changing world order.
SUBHEAD: From Objects of Governance to Rule-Shapers
The changing role of the Global South has unfolded over decades. Since the end of World War II, developing countries have experienced three broad awakenings. The first came with decolonization. After 1945, anti-colonial movements swept across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Newly independent states entered the United Nations and became formally equal subjects of international law. The “Third World” and the Non-Aligned Movement emerged as collective actors in world politics. The core demand of this period was political independence and sovereign autonomy.
The second awakening followed the end of the Cold War. As globalization accelerated, many developing countries entered global production networks and trading systems. Their participation was often passive at first, but it brought access to markets, capital, technology, and industrial relocation. Some countries used reform, export-oriented growth, infrastructure investment, and industrial upgrading to achieve rapid development. The core demand of this phase was economic development and the expansion of productive capacity.
The third awakening has taken shape since the second decade of the twenty-first century. As the U.S.-led order of hyper-globalization has weakened and great-power competition has intensified, Global South countries have grown more assertive. They continue to seek growth, but they also emphasize strategic autonomy, cultural confidence, and institutional agency. China and other developing countries have shown that modernization need not follow a Western template, and need not be achieved through hegemonic expansion, war, or plunder. At the core of this awakening is confidence in one’s own path and institutions.
Taken together, these awakenings mark a transition from being governed to participating in governance. In the past, many Global South countries were rule-takers, policy implementers, and aid recipients. Today they increasingly act as rule-shapers, providers of public goods, and stabilizers of order. In the future, as power continues to diffuse, they may become agenda-setters in more areas still.
Political independence made this transition possible, but it was only the first step. Formal sovereignty does not automatically produce real equality. In international political economy, economic strength often determines political voice. Because of colonial legacies and an unequal global division of labor, many developing countries long remained at the lower end of value chains—as suppliers of raw materials, sites of low-end manufacturing, or markets for a single commodity. Without industrialization, urbanization, productivity growth, and scientific and technological capacity, political independence alone cannot deliver real international influence.
The Global South still faces deep constraints. Social instability, weak governance capacity, infrastructure deficits, lock-in at the low end of industry, limited research capacity, talent outflows, inadequate education, skills mismatches, insufficient resource development, the pressures of energy transition, and weak discursive power remain common challenges. These difficulties have internal roots, but they also reflect external constraints created by a Western-centered model of modernization and an unequal international structure.
For the Global South to become a genuine subject of global governance, political independence must be joined to economic development and institutional capacity. Post–Cold War globalization created opportunities, but passive integration into global markets did not guarantee success. A country that relies only on external markets, capital, and technology, without building its own industrial system, governance capacity, and development strategy, will remain vulnerable to dependency.
The key is autonomous openness and autonomous reform: to make use of globalization while avoiding renewed lock-in by unequal rules; to learn from outside experience while preserving institutional autonomy; to participate in the international division of labor while upgrading domestic industry, technology, and governance. The experiences of China, Vietnam, and others show that modernization requires combining openness with autonomy, reform with stability, and industrial upgrading with the building of state capacity.
China has a special role in this process. ‘Global China’ does not simply mean that Chinese influence has spread abroad. It means that, after restarting its own modernization process, China became deeply intertwined with the modernization of other countries and regions—and gradually emerged as a force reshaping the global map of modernization. Its development has altered not only China’s own fate but also the global economy, the structure of industry, the technological landscape, and the governance system.
China’s significance lies not in exporting a fixed model but in demonstrating that modernization can take many forms. Its experience suggests that developing countries can modernize while maintaining political independence, cultural subjectivity, and strategic autonomy. Its peaceful development also shows that modernization need not depend on conquest, colonial plunder, or hegemonic expansion.
China’s proposals—the community with a shared future for humanity, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative—seek to create a more peaceful, secure, equitable, inclusive, and cooperative environment for world modernization. At their core is a concern with helping Global South countries strengthen their economic autonomy, political independence, social equity, and cultural confidence, and move beyond dependent positions in the global system.
SUBHEAD: Strategic Autonomy and the Contest of Orders
A rebalanced global-governance system must begin by recognizing the strategic autonomy of the Global South. Most developing countries put development at the center of their national agendas, but they also place a high value on autonomy. As great-power competition intensifies and bloc politics returns, many countries face renewed pressure to choose sides. Yet unlike during the Cold War, most Global South countries today do not wish simply to follow one major power. They seek to make independent choices based on their own interests.
This preference has deep historical roots. Many Global South countries were once colonies or semi-colonies, and experienced foreign domination, resource extraction, and political intervention. After independence, they became highly sensitive to any arrangement that might reduce them, once again, to appendages of the great powers. Strategic autonomy is therefore not a slogan; it is a historical lesson.
In today’s global-governance system, the voice of the Global South is rising, but imbalance remains. In economic, financial, security, and technology governance, the representation and institutional weight of developing countries still fall short of their population, territory, economic potential, and development needs. Correcting this imbalance is one of the central tasks of governance reform.
Great-power competition has returned as a dominant narrative in international relations. The U.S.-China rivalry has intensified, and geopolitics, protectionism, unilateralism, and bloc politics have all gained ground. In response, not only developing countries but also some Western middle powers have begun to stress autonomy. They do not want a return to power politics, or a world governed by the law of the jungle; nor do they wish to become overly dependent on a single major power.
Many states now hedge across issue areas. They may cooperate with China on trade, infrastructure, green development, digital technology, and climate, while relying on the United States or Western alliances for security. Their choices are increasingly pragmatic rather than ideological: they seek diversified partnerships in order to maximize their policy space. This has important implications for the major powers. They cannot win durable support in the Global South through threats, coercion, or exclusive blocs. Forcing countries to choose sides will breed resentment and mistrust. A more effective strategy is to offer solutions aligned with shared interests, to provide practical public goods, to respect national choices, and to help countries strengthen their development and governance capacity.
Rebalancing global governance also requires a clearer understanding of the emerging international order. The future is unlikely to feature the simple replacement of one order by another. More likely is the coexistence, competition, and overlapping of several orders at once. The first possibility is a rules-based order defended by middle powers. Some Western middle powers seek to preserve the post–Cold War rules-based system; they oppose unilateralism and great-power domination. Many Global South countries also support rules in principle, because rules can restrain power and protect small and medium-sized states.
A second possibility is a new spheres-of-influence order. This vision assumes that the major powers may divide the world into zones of dominance. But it rests on an outdated geopolitical imagination. Contemporary influence is not only geographic; it is also built through technology platforms, industrial ecosystems, supply chains, data networks, energy systems, finance, and rule-setting.
A third possibility is a “world-minus-one” order. Some in the United States and the West imagine a Western-led system that excludes China—and perhaps Russia, Iran, North Korea, and others. Conversely, some countries frustrated by U.S. unilateralism discuss arrangements that would reduce American dominance. Both forms are exclusionary and both face serious limits: in an interdependent world, excluding any major power raises systemic costs and instability.
A fourth possibility is the order envisioned by China’s concept of a community with a shared future for humanity. This approach emphasizes common security, common development, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning among civilizations, and global governance based on consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefit. It does not seek an exclusive bloc. It aims to strengthen cooperation among sovereign states facing shared risks—from climate change and artificial intelligence to public health, food security, energy security, and financial stability.
The future order will likely contain elements of all these possibilities. Multiple orders will coexist, compete, and penetrate one another, and states will build flexible coalitions around specific issues. China and the United States cannot return to their old relationship, but they must find a way to coexist peacefully. The essential task is to prevent competition from becoming conflict, and to preserve cooperation amid disagreement.
SUBHEAD: Digital Equity and Debt Governance
If the Global South is to reshape global governance, it needs concrete levers. Digital governance is one of them. For developing countries, digital infrastructure matters—but the more important goal is meaningful connectivity and making sure that it is affordable. A country may build fiber-optic cables, mobile networks, and broadband infrastructure, but if ordinary citizens cannot afford access, the connection is of limited value. Digital infrastructure must not only be built; it must be usable.
It must also serve practical needs. In an agricultural country, connectivity that enables only access to foreign entertainment does little for development. Digital networks should support farming, with weather, hydrological, soil, market, and pest information; they should improve education, healthcare, finance, public services, and disaster prevention. The purpose of connectivity is to enhance production, livelihoods, and resilience.
The Global South’s digital agenda should therefore move from connectivity in general to meaningful connectivity in particular. Digital technology must serve development and reduce inequality, rather than create new divides. The same logic applies to artificial intelligence. In the advanced economies, debates on AI governance focus heavily on ethics, risk, regulation, and safety. These issues matter. But for many developing countries, the initial questions are more basic: how to gain access to AI; how to use it in agriculture, healthcare, education, disaster warning, and urban management; and how to ensure that it supports development. AI governance should address not only restraint and the prevention of risk but also empowerment and the right to development.
China has practical advantages in this area. It has rich application scenarios across both advanced and developing regions, and its experience in smart cities, digital agriculture, mobile payments, telemedicine, online education, meteorological warning, and public administration can be adapted to countries at different stages of development. For many Global South countries, an intelligent system that can warn of floods, droughts, storms, or urban disasters may matter more than abstract principles of AI governance.
Debt governance is another key lever. For many developing countries, debt is a structural constraint. Infrastructure, public services, industrialization, and crisis response all require large-scale financing; and because domestic capital accumulation is limited, many countries rely on external borrowing, which creates sovereign-debt pressures.
Effective debt governance must balance the interests of creditor countries, debtor countries, international financial institutions, and private creditors. Simple debt cancellation cannot solve every problem. If debt goes unpaid for too long, a country’s creditworthiness and future financing capacity decline; but if debt burdens are too heavy, public spending and development space are squeezed, and social instability may follow. Debt governance must therefore reduce burdens while preserving long-term credit.
China’s role has evolved from debtor to creditor. It now participates actively in international debt treatment, including through repayment extensions, interest reductions, and, in some cases, partial relief. But China also emphasizes development as the foundation of the capacity to repay. If borrowed funds are used for infrastructure, industry, and livelihoods, and if the resulting growth generates the means to repay, debt can become part of a positive development cycle.
Debt treatment should also be linked to green and sustainable development. It should not focus only on financial balance but should produce development outcomes: if restructuring supports green transition, climate adaptation, infrastructure upgrading, and the building of industrial capacity, debt problems can be converted into development opportunities.
The role of private creditors is increasingly important. Many sovereign-debt problems now involve commercial banks, investment funds, and other private actors, not governments alone, and their participation in restructuring directly affects the fairness and effectiveness of debt governance. China’s encouragement of broader participation can improve the integrity of the system. At the same time, China should continue to improve its own practices—increasing the transparency of debt data, strengthening project evaluation, deepening multilateral coordination, and communicating its rules more effectively.
SUBHEAD: Institutional Empowerment
For the Global South to participate meaningfully in global governance, it needs more than opportunities to speak. It needs institutional empowerment: the reforms, capacities, public goods, and platforms that enable developing countries to help set agendas, make rules, and implement governance.
First, global-governance reform must be guided by values—peace, inclusiveness, equality, and common development. The Global South does not seek a new hegemony. It seeks a more just and reasonable international order. Developing countries want respect, equal treatment, protection of the right to development, and recognition of cultural diversity. Without a response to these demands, global governance will lack legitimacy.
Second, the international community must provide more public goods. Public goods are not slogans; they are capabilities. Infrastructure, poverty-reduction experience, agricultural technology, digital platforms, early-warning systems, public-health capacity, education and training, green technology, and financing support are all urgently needed. The purpose is not to create dependence but to strengthen autonomous development.
Third, more platforms for voice and cooperation are needed. Developing countries remain underrepresented in many traditional institutions, and new mechanisms can expand their space for expression and participation. The World Artificial Intelligence Conference, global development-cooperation platforms, South-South cooperation mechanisms, and relevant international organizations can all provide opportunities for agenda-setting, technical cooperation, and the discussion of rules. China’s incremental approach to building such platforms supplements existing governance resources and helps to correct the structural advantages the West enjoys in the older mechanisms.
Fourth, broad ideas must be translated into concrete programs. Developing countries do not need empty promises; they need arrangements that are workable, replicable, and sustainable. These moves—from connectivity to meaningful connectivity, from AI governance to AI-enabled development, and from debt relief to the integration of debt, development, and green transition—are all examples of how large principles can become practical solutions. Effective governance is not measured by declarations; it is measured by whether it solves real problems.
Fifth, different development paths must be respected. Global South countries differ in history, culture, resources, institutions, and stages of development; they cannot all follow one model. Institutional empowerment should not make choices for them. It should expand their ability to choose for themselves. A fair global-governance system must allow countries to explore the paths best suited to their own conditions.
The rise of the Global South is one of the defining structural trends of the contemporary world. It is changing the distribution of power, pushing the international system toward reform, reshaping technology and industry, and altering the global narratives of modernization and civilization. Its significance lies not only in the fact that more countries are developing. It lies in the diversification of the subjects of modernization, the broadening of the foundations of global governance, and the growing demand for legitimacy in the world order.
China is both a participant in and a contributor to this process. Its modernization shows that developing countries can pursue paths suited to their national conditions. Its peaceful development shows that modernization need not rely on hegemony or war. Its global initiatives and its provision of public goods support developing countries in participating in governance, building capacity, and building confidence.
The central task of future global governance is not to build new blocs, but to create a more equitable, inclusive, effective, and sustainable system amid multipolarity, the adjustment of globalization, and technological revolution. The rise of the Global South does not make fragmentation inevitable. If countries respect one another’s paths, expand their shared interests, provide effective public goods, and make the rules fairer, the rise of the Global South can become a historic opportunity to rebalance global governance. In this sense, it is not only a result of change in the world order; it is also a force pushing that order toward greater justice and fairness.
