CHINA AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH

William Paton

4 hours ago

7 min read

Shaping the Emerging New World Order

PHUKET—There is little doubt why other developing countries are cooperating more and more with China. The economic advantages are great and promise to become even greater. For instance, China is now the biggest supplier of imports to most owf Asia and South America and half of Africa.(1)

As for their exports, China now imports goods worth $1.5trn vs the U.S.A.'s $1.9trn.(2) While the U.S.A. has imposed tariffs on the entire world, aiming to reduce its imports, China has waived all tariffs on 53 out of 54 African countries and is speedily reducing non-tariff barriers as well. It shows great promise of further increasing its imports in future, both in its quest to increase domestic household consumption and to better balance its trade.

Infrastructure designed to further this South South trade boom is another important factor. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013, has supported projects designed to improve transport, energy, and digital connectivity. Well over $1.1trn has been spent with countries receiving investments they prioritize, speedily executed, in essentials like ports, roads, railways, and undersea internet cables —together with perks such as access to China's satellite data. Total expenditure of at least $2trn is foreseen.

China is also increasingly sensitive to any perceptions about its trade and investment in the South. Early infrastructure projects used Chinese unskilled labourers in African countries with high unemployment， sparking complaints. Now, Chinese firms hire more local staff. Beijing has also thrown its weight behind a drive by resource-rich nations to get a greater share of the spoils from their assets, and not just export raw materials, recently investing $16bn in processing and manufacturing across Africa.(3)

AidData’s 2024 research, which surveyed leaders from 129 countries, found that 79% of respondents viewed Beijing as actively supporting development in their country.(4)

How Is China’s Economic Influence Changing Global Diplomacy?

Economic relationships often shape diplomatic choices. Countries that rely on one another for trade, investment, energy, or essential supplies have practical reasons to maintain stable relations. China’s expanding commercial presence thus creates more opportunities for Beijing to engage with governments across the Global South.

Western media generally only cover the biggest South-South meetings, such as of BRICS, or perhaps the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, showing alarm at their growth (both include China, Russia and India), while simultaneously deriding their importance. However, there is also a huge number of ministerial meetings, regional forums, trade agreements, and development partnerships, whose events are often hosted in China, providing a growing number of channels for sustained South-South diplomatic contact.

This trend to "strength and diversity" in the Global South's international affairs is an important new development compared to the West's insistence on a set of political, economic and social rules they hold to be superior.

Of course, countries like to assert their political independence. A government may thus welcome Chinese investment while disagreeing with Beijing in a maritime dispute. Another may maintain extensive commercial ties with China while still relying on the United States for defence cooperation. Unlike the West, the Global South is only rarely a unified political bloc, yet this is not at all preventing them from working together on matters of mutual interest.

South-East Asia is a good example. Eleven nations with starkly different political systems, economies, societies and all major religions are cooperating with each other better and better, including a comprehensive strategic partnership and free trade area with China.

This trend to "strength and diversity" in the Global South's international affairs is an important new development compared to the West's insistence on a set of political, economic and social rules they hold to be superior.

Is China Providing an Alternative to Western-Led Institutions?

For decades, institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have played dominant roles in international development finance. Both are based in Washington; the IMF has traditionally been headed by a European and the World Bank by an American. Their lending conditions, governance structures, and policy requirements have often alienated developing countries, some of which accuse these institutions of being instruments of Western domination. Remarkably, the U.S.A. alone retains the power to exercise a unilateral veto over certain major decisions at both institutions, including amendments to their governing agreements.

In response, China has been steadily expanding the available alternatives. Through bilateral lending, the BRI, and new institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank based in Beijing, and BRICS' New Development Bank based in Shanghai, China has created additional channels for financing and economic cooperation which give developing countries more financing options, strengthening their negotiating positions.

Building on the BRI, China has over the last five years launched: The Global Development Initiative (2021), the Global Security Initiative (2022), The Global Civilization Initiative (2023), and now the Global Governance Initiative (2025). Their pillars are such key concepts as:

Sovereign equality
Adherence to international law without double standards
Multilateralism
A people-centered development agenda, and
Pragmatic cooperation

The Western alliance will realize the importance of these initiatives only late, and then react with derision as they did to the BRI and BRICS, fearful of an emerging new world order they see as parallel. But what is emerging is not a parallel world order but rather a replacement for the existing one.

China's efforts are only the biggest part of a broader picture which also includes India, Brazil, South Africa, Gulf economies, regional organisations, and other countries seeking greater international influence. Many governments pursue flexible partnerships and strategic autonomy.

A country might welcome Chinese infrastructure investment without supporting every Chinese position at the United Nations. Such flexibility challenges traditional assumptions about geopolitical blocs. It works to China's advantage as many leaders in developing countries come to trust Beijing not to interfere in their domestic and other affairs.

This deep shift in turn changes what major powers must now offer their partners. Historical ties and political alignment alone are no longer enough. Governments increasingly want practical benefits, credible commitments, and cooperation that addresses their own development priorities.

U.S.-led Efforts to Tarnish China's Image in the Global South

United States - China rivalry was undoubtedly fueled by the belated realisation that China's BRI was an extremely important, massive and strategic programme. Under President Trump's first term, the U.S.A. went on the attack, falsely denigrating the BRI as a "debt trap." They relied not on facts but on misrepresentation, especially of a single example of a port in Sri Lanka that fell into arrears. The story was re-told over and over again. Smaller, competing schemes such as the BUILD Act were hastily launched only to quickly be forgotten. They went on to work diligently, country-by country, to throw as much sand as possible in the gears of China's diplomatic relationships.

The COVID pandemic — which should have brought the world together — was instead turned into an historic mud-slinging match, an embarrassment for all humanity. U.S. hostility to BRICS+ became especially strident, with President Trump's boast in 2025 that he would impose 100% tariffs on any BRICS member supporting "de-dollarization" of their international payments.

For approximately a decade, the U.S.A.'s politicians and media pumped out regular, more or less weekly China smears, accusing Beijing of just about everything they could think of: Slavery, genocide, torture. Mind control. Mass surveillance. They created a fictitious image in the popular imagination of an Orwellian China, where people were followed everywhere by cameras, graded on their political fidelity and arrested for their opinions. In this story, China's electronic goods such as 5G equipment and apps such as Tik Tok were transformed into highly dangerous tools of espionage in the hands of the dreaded Chinese Communist Party.

These efforts to tarnish China's image have been spectacularly unsuccessful, at least outside the Western alliance itself. Pew Research Center's July 2026 survey of 37 countries found that China was viewed more favourably than the U.S.A. in 25 of the 36 countries and territories for which comparable data were available. Some 90% of Pakistanis, 78% of Nigerians and 75% of Malaysians had a favourable view of China. (5) Even in most countries within the Western alliance — despite years of intensive China-bashing — views of China have improved.

The Emerging New World Order

China’s growing engagement with the Global South is only a part of a broader transformation in international relations. Developing economies in general are playing increasingly important roles in global trade, investment, and production, and thus also in diplomacy.

UN Trade and Development reported that trade among developing economies exceeded $6 trillion in 2024, representing approximately one-quarter of global goods trade. This expansion creates opportunities for deeper South-South cooperation and more diverse economic partnerships. It is not difficult to foresee that later this century, South-South trade will become the majority of world trade, and that a seismic shift in global power relations is coming.

China will remain an important participant in this process, but is unlikely to any longer grow much faster than the Global South as a whole, thus only slightly increasing its share of the world economy any further. Its influence will increasingly depend on more than its ability to finance infrastructure projects and host meetings. Its partners outside Africa will want more market access, and the entire South will seek investment that supports their local industries, along with respect for their independent choices.

Other major powers must also rise to this challenge. Maintaining strong relationships with rising developing economies will require responding to their priorities, no longer treating them solely as arenas for geopolitical competition. Developing countries are seeking a stronger role in shaping global rules and they are going to get it.

China is clearly leading this welcome "Rise of the South" and will continue to do so for some decades to come. It's still-growing influence is steadily changing international politics by expanding economic choices for developing countries, strengthening Southern diplomatic networks, and louder and louder demands for a more representative global order.

The Global South will remain extraordinarily diverse politically, economically and socially. China’s partnerships will never translate into the kind of long-term political alignment that was demanded by the U.S.A. and the Western alliance, nor does China appear to want that. Above all, it will be how well China responds to their future evolving economic priorities — and how much other powers can build similarly credible partnerships — that will determine the future distribution of global influence.

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Our World in Data (28 October 2026), Tracking who trades with whom around the world, https://ourworldindata.org/tracking-who-trades-with-whom-around-the-world.
UNCTAD, International Trade: Data Insights, https://unctadstat.unctad.org/insights/theme/227.
South China Morning Post (7 November 2026), Why China is investing heavily in African push to bring mineral processing home， https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3373514/why-china-investing-heavily-african-push-bring-mineral-processing-home?
AID Data (26 March 2024), The BRI at 10: A report card from the Global South, https://www.aiddata.org/blog/the-bri-at-10-a-report-card-from-the-global-south.
Pew Research Center (15 July 2026), Views of China and Xi Are Improving Globally, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/07/15/views-of-china-and-xi-are-improving-globally/.