No one thought it worthwhile to decipher what Xi Jinping’s proposal to establish a Global Governance Initiative (GGI) really means. Most media outlets stopped at the spectacle — the embrace extended to Putin, the anti-Western rhetoric — without grasping the significance of a text that addresses history more than the moment.
This is the « Honecker syndrome »: in 1989, the words that implicitly signaled the fall of the Berlin Wall were met with indifference or delay by observers stuck in their habitual frameworks. Even today, the speech of a leader as consequential as the Chinese president — issued at a summit representing nearly half the world’s population, in the presence of the UN Secretary-General — is read as a mere tactical maneuver.
Yet, it is precisely within the texture of the words that the novelty lies: an attempt to restore and upgrade the UN and the WTO, and, under the guise of diplomatic display, to bind his own allies within a pacifist and multilateral framework. China is not a post-truth nation. It is a constructive power.
1. The Apparent Content: A Revisited UN Doctrine
Xi Jinping presented the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) in five key points:
- Sovereign equality of States,
- Full observance of the UN Charter,
- Multilateralism based on consultation and mutual benefit,
- A people-centered approach,
- Movement toward tangible action.
Taken in isolation, these principles seem like diplomatic generalities. But placed in context, they form a full-fledged normative offer — not an alternative project, but a claim to restore and update existing institutions, foremost among them the UN and the WTO.
2. Its True Scope: A General Upgrade of Institutions
Contrary to media perception, this is not about a Sino-Russian bloc opposing the West, but a gesture of outreach to the entire world. Xi does not propose alignment with Beijing; rather, he calls for shared intelligence under the aegis of the United Nations.
This nuance changes everything:
- Beijing does not claim a new closed order but champions the rehabilitation of the multilateral framework, promising to adjust it to the North-South imbalances.
- By presenting the speech before the UN Secretary-General, Xi endowed it with unprecedented solemnity: this is no longer a regional manifesto, but an attempt to re-position China as guardian of the universal.
3. The Showcase Effect: Immediate Recognition
For Putin, Khamenei, and Netanyahu, the scene served as a flattering showcase:
- International recognition for Moscow despite Western isolation,
- Implicit validation for Tehran in its confrontation with Washington,
- Confirmation for Israel that it remains a key player in the Middle East.
They heard what they wanted to hear — support against the West.
4. The Vitrifying Effect: Historical Constraint
But behind the display lies a glass cage.
By affirming that the international system must be based on sovereign equality, rejection of double standards, and centrality of the UN, Xi has locked his allies into a logic that exceeds them:
- Putin cannot indefinitely justify aggressive war without putting China at odds with the Charter he sanctifies.
- Netanyahu cannot indefinitely disregard multilateral resolutions without undermining the universal authority that China claims to rehabilitate.
- Khamenei cannot sustain an oppositional posture without being reminded of the principle of universal cooperation.
What Xi offers through the showcase, he takes away through vitrification: immediate recognition, but at the cost of enduring normative constraint.
5. A latency reminiscent of 1989
As in 1989 with Honecker, the media are failing to grasp the magnitude of the moment: they reduce the speech to its immediate use, whereas it sets a deeper process in motion. The GGI may be the first source-text of a reconfigured international order.
If the news cycle fixes on the image of Xi welcoming Putin, history will retain the formulation of a framework that aims to restore and transform universal institutions.
Conclusion: beyond the conjunctural, the constraint of language
Xi’s words are not a mere posture. They are sealed with the authority of Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister. They constitute a normative architecture. Once spoken before the world and the UN, they become binding, and will, little by little, vitrify subversion.
It is not the photograph of a summit that will matter, but the lasting effect of these words:
- if they take root, the GGI could amount to a “Pacific Charter of the twenty-first century,” open to the rest of the world;
- if they fail, they will remain as an unfulfilled promise, the memory of which will weigh on China’s credibility.
In all cases, History walked into the room that day — and the media, once again, failed to hear it.
En attendant la Renaissance 