China’s multilateral pitch is finding an audience

As Washington increasingly turns away from the multilateral order it once helped build, Beijing is emerging as an advocate of international cooperation and rules-based stability. For some, the real surprise is that China’s rise is not challenging the world order but that its interests align with preserving it. When I met Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the corridor of a congress centre in Myanmar, he had just finished addressing more than 50 foreign ministers, emphasising the need for a multilateral, cooperative approach to our shared future. It was 2017, and the message was what you would expect in a ceremonial speech. Few in that hall could have imagined that less than a decade later, serious Western leaders would regard China as one of the foremost advocates of the international order. The years that have passed since then have left the world more volatile than it has been in decades, and the behaviour of its strongest actor has not worked in favour of stability. The United States, the chief architect of the post-war order and once the proud protector of international law, has been showing signs of losing its edge in more areas than it can peacefully accept. Washington’s increasingly erratic behaviour on the international scene has been met with disbelief by even its allies. There is a vacuum forming in global leadership. US withdrawals from a multitude of international organisations and US President Donald Trump’s tariff war against practically half the world made this obvious lately. The US is not isolating itself – it is as active internationally as ever. But instead of building coalitions and upholding well-established standards, it acts without any multilateral constraint, disintegrating said standards across the board. While Europe is weighed down by structural problems and its lack of a common voice, the Global South is gaining momentum. Still, China is not rushing to take the vacated spot of a global hegemon. On the contrary, it is calling for an end to this world order that has long been defined by domination. In Beijing’s view, the future is written through multilateral cooperation, respect for the international legal order and finding win-win solutions to all major global dilemmas.