The Sovereign South and the Gravitational Rise of Multipolarity |
The Global South is no longer seeking to integrate into the Western “rules-based order”; it is shaping its own model of a sovereign multipolar world, in which China stands not as a hegemon but as a pillar of a new geopolitical gravity.
China is at the center of this transformation—not as a challenger seeking to replace the West, but as a gravitational node enabling others to escape the orbit of conditional development, financial coercion, and moral paternalism. The Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI), Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), and the newly launched Global Governance Initiative (GGI) are prime examples of China’s unique stance. Beijing offers a non-negotiable framework made up of sovereign equality, non-interference, and civilizational pluralism. These are not slogans; they are the bedrock of a post-hegemonic order.
At the 2025 G20 summit in Johannesburg—the first ever held on African soil — the United States boycotted and dismissed South Africa’s priorities on trade, climate, and equity as incompatible with its own. Yet from that absence, a new alignment emerged. Leaders from Brazil, India, China, Turkey, and the African Union reaffirmed a shared truth: the Global........