Global governance

Hong Kong businessman and political figure Lew Mon-hung notes that China used to have a strong sense of right and wrong, with values of righteousness and morality. However, looking at China’s reaction to the war in Ukraine, it seems that these values have been abandoned. And this can only lead to a shift in the progress that China has made over the past 40 years.

China’s coal and electricity shortage last year and the current impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on global energy supply have highlighted China’s energy security concerns and the risks to fulfilling its climate goals. Nevertheless, while EAI academic Chen Gang believes that China is unlikely to significantly reduce its consumption of fossil fuels in the short term, he notes that there remain several drivers that will accelerate China's clean energy transition.

The establishment of the United Nations was a major step towards forging a new world order after the chaos of World War II. For China, it was a chance to recover from the humiliation of the two Opium Wars, the First Sino-Japanese War and World War II, where it was forced to cede territory and submit to Western powers. Not only was China able to sign equal treaties to take back its land, it became a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and took its place on the world stage.

Former journalist and MP Goh Choon Kang asserts that out of the 110 invitees for this week’s Summit for Democracy, more than a few countries probably chose to go along out of courtesy. In the main, the international community subscribes to inclusiveness and win-win multilateralism. Efforts to delineate countries based on ideology or values will not go down very well. If anything, the invite and non-invite lists speak of the US’s own geopolitical calculations, not least its search for an added means to contain China.

Kong Tuan Yuen notes that this year’s virtual 38th and 39th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits achieved several deliverables, including commitments from dialogue partners such as China, Japan and the US for increased Covid-19 assistance and other cooperation. The grouping also agreed to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership with China and Australia respectively. ASEAN’s desire to maintain its centrality is clear from the way it has timed the two comprehensive strategic partnerships and the stance it adopted on ASEAN member state Myanmar's representation.

The EU and ASEAN are supporters of a rules-based global system, says Joergen Oerstroem Moeller. As such, they can use their collective weight to persuade Washington and Beijing to focus less on their bilateral tensions and more on solving contemporary problems.

The US has said that withdrawing from Afghanistan will give it more bandwidth to deal with Russia and its “serious competitor” China. The latter in particular, has become a key target. Chinese academic Wang Zhengxu asserts that the US should learn from its Afghanistan experience that the military option should only be used in self-defence. If it gets involved in China’s core concerns and insists on building an anti-China alliance, China will bristle and regional instability can only increase.

Chen Kang explains why global governance is hard to achieve, not least due to the limited effectiveness of multilateral organisations, the waning willingness of the US to lead in global governance, and the conflicts between global governance and national sovereignty.

China was at the centre of discussions in the recently concluded G7 summit in Cornwall. While the US is corralling its allies to take a harder stance on China on various issues, a lot of this is all talk and it will be hard in reality to agree on and implement such plans, says Zaobao correspondent Yu Zeyuan. On its part, China is focusing on increasing its national strength to meet the challenge.