Event

China’s well-reported multilateral rise is presumed to challenge US leadership a Western-dominated United Nations system. Amongst China’s many multilateral contributions are its advance of ‘Global Initiatives,’ which China frames as global public goods – namely the Global Data Security Initiative, the Global AI Governance Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and most recently, the Global Civilisation Initiative. This paper applies sociological interpretations of power against these Global Initiatives to investigate how China’s growing discursive efforts could be translated into influence. The paper concludes that while these Global Initiatives are still in their infancy, they are sites of US-China strategic competition, with China varying its approach to establishing these platforms at the United Nations and with varied effects to, at least in the short term, improve China’s power and influence. My research uses primary and secondary sources produced by PRC and UN elites, and is supplemented by interviews of PRC, US and UN officials conducted in Washington, DC and New York City in May – June 2024.