Zhao Long, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Institute for International Strategic and Security Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies
For scholars in philosophy and social sciences, dismantling the Western-centrism that still dominates global governance theory is urgent, given China’s rich practical experience in global governance and its contribution to this area.
First, we must confront and overturn entrenched orthodoxies—“governance without government,” “polycentric power,” “goal-based sovereignty transfers”—and decisively reject the fallacies that “sovereignty is obsolete” or that “human rights outrank sovereignty.” Second, we should move the Global South from being passive “rule-takers” to active “beneficiaries,” insisting on a people-centered ethos. By re-imagining how states participate and how rights and obligations are shared, we can make theoretical innovation a joint venture that draws the South into co-authoring a post-Western architecture of global governance.
Social Sciences Weekly, Issue 1985, Page 3, January 15