The Global South Perspectives Network enters this new phase of publishing its Open Consultation Mondays’ dialogues at a moment when the international system appears suspended between epochs. One can sense a world taking stock of itself, as if pausing briefly before deciding what kind of order it wishes to inhabit next. The structures inherited from 1945 still stand, at least in name and legal form, yet their gravitational pull has weakened. Power has become more diffuse, expectations more plural and the consensus that once underpinned multilateralism has thinned with time.
It is within this atmosphere of transition that China’s Global Governance Initiative (GGI) has emerged. It is an initiative that has not only intensified existing debates about global power but has also illuminated the deeper uncertainties defining this historical moment. Some interpret the GGI as a strategic challenge to a familiar order, whilst others see it as a direct response to the reform inertia that has plagued multilateral institutions for decades. Many in the Global South recognise in it an echo of long-articulated frustrations, a sense, so to say, that the current system speaks the language of universality, yet often operates through hierarchies that privilege the few over the many.
This consultation, one of many held under the Monday Consultations banner, brought together analysts, practitioners and observers from across the global community, each contributing to a shared inquiry into what the GGI represents and what its emergence might mean for the future of global governance.
This analytical brief offers an expanded account of that conversation. It does not merely document the dialogue, it attempts to interpret it, so as to situate the remarks, questions and insights within the broader currents shaping the transition from an older order to whatever may come next. In doing so, it aims to provide a reflective and grounded contribution to the growing discourse on how the Global South might navigate a system that is neither stable, nor yet fully transformed.
Global South Perspectives Network 
Leave a comment