摘要：There is a general tendency of self-denying, mutually destructive and even apocalyptic dualism in Western thought. This tendency s
By Josef Gregory Mahoney
Lead: China's newly proposed Global Governance Initiative offers an alternative to the dualistic, zero-sum thinking that has dominated Western approaches to international relations for centuries.
There is a general tendency of self-denying, mutually destructive and even apocalyptic dualism in Western thought. This tendency struggles to reconcile contradictions. Instead, it reductively views the world through simplistic lenses like good or evil, black or white, male or female, and so on. It imagines relatively absolute categories of dichotomous differences and oppositions, often in a perpetual war with each other.
Such thinking can be found in Western metaphysical traditions, such as depictions of heaven and hell. And yet, Western culture also produced philosophies and formal logics that likewise described either/or constructs. These are, in turn, normalized as an unending battle, one fought at the fault lines of such a fractured understanding of the natural world and human nature, despite claiming a masterful command of both.
This is not to say Western thought and practices lacked genius or compassion. Even among dualists, we can observe a tremendous capacity for understanding the subtle and the sublime. Furthermore, Western contributions to global culture and the development of human civilization are truly breathtaking. To some extent, we are all children of the Enlightenment and the scientific and industrial revolutions. Likewise, we are all children of struggles with fascism, imperialism and dispossessions of the working class and developing countries.
We should also recall that some Western philosophers, including Heraclitus, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, among others, resisted dualism and its tendency to obscure underlying truths. Instead, they recognized the coexistence of contradictions as the nature of being and the engines of change, if not progress. Regrettably, their ideas never surmounted dualism in the West. However, they have been received positively in the East, especially in China, where both language and culture had postulated the "unity of opposites" and the need to harmonize contradictions, not eradicate differences, for thousands of years.
This may seem like a rather indirect and possibly pedantic way to start a discussion about contemporary challenges facing multilateralism and China's newly proposed Global Governance Initiative (GGI). But arguably it gets us right to the heart of the matter.
This photo taken on Sept. 9, 2025 shows the 60th session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. China stands ready to actively participate in improving global human rights governance, Chen Xu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland, said here on Tuesday. [Photo by Lian Yi/Xinhua]
First, let's recall the famous words of the second U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold: the U.N. "was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell." First spoken in 1954, all understood "hell" here referred to the relatively recent experiences of two world wars, genocide, and ever-present dangers associated with opposing, nuclear-armed blocs.
Second, let's recall that the U.N. and the global governance system were created to mitigate the risks first produced by a globalized competitive nation-state system. This system subdivided the world into opposing, capitalist empires, simultaneously suppressing the people it ruled and mobilizing against those it didn't. This competitive system originated in the West. While it emerged alongside the scientific and industrial revolutions, it also unleashed tremendous destruction through modern warfare. This system continues to put profits over people through capitalism and has severely degraded the global commons, causing the Anthropocene and climate change.
The global governance system that started emerging 80 years ago did not fundamentally alter the dualistic, competitive logic ruling the nations of the world or how the most powerful among these ruled others. While it made modest but valuable contributions to human development, helped feed the hungry and keep the peace, it did not prevent starvation, war or even genocide. Perhaps the system itself was infected too much by the either/or values that had necessitated its creation in the first place.
It's been said that if the U.N. didn't exist, then we'd have to create it. Certainly, there are those who wish it dead and aim to preserve whatever narrow privileges they might derive from its inefficiencies, undemocratic characteristics and bureaucratic bloat. In this respect, American political conservatives, particularly, have long tended to defend these flaws, seeing them as protective of their preferred power structures. After the People's Republic of China restored its lawful seat at the U.N. in 1971, expelling the Chiang Kai-shek clique, U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater proposed defunding the U.N., reflecting long-standing American conservative hostility toward multilateral institutions.
We see this today in the zero-sum thinking driving MAGA exceptionalism. This includes abandoning the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the Paris Agreement, and undercutting the World Trade Organization with a global trade war. But we also see it in the general conservative disdain for government and governance, including contempt for the U.S. government itself.
This photo taken on Sept. 11, 2025 shows an emergency meeting of the Security Council at the UN headquarters in New York. [Photo by Xie E/Xinhua]
It's unsurprising that some don't want to pay for institutions that are designed in part to limit how much they can impose their will on others. And yet, already, they pay so little. The U.N. budget is relatively tiny, only $3.72 billion, a fraction of its host city's budget of $116 billion, or Trump's trillion-dollar "Department of War" budget. In fact, the U.N. is vastly underfunded relative to the expectations and needs of people worldwide. Yet the U.S. cuts funds and claims it's bloated and wasteful.
Meanwhile, the U.S. resists U.N. reforms because it wants to perpetuate the power it wields there while simultaneously justifying cuts because reforms are needed. This is the cognitive bias driving U.S. policy toward the U.N. and the global governance system. Economists call this "status quo bias" or "default bias," and political scientists recognize it as a key feature of conservative political ideologies. While this may appear rational for Washington because it seems to align with self-interest, we know such behavior inevitably proves self-limiting and self-destructive. Amid intersecting singularities, systemic changes are overdetermined and impossible to stop. But what can we say? The cases of those clinging to power until it slips or is ripped from their hands are by no means rare in history.
It's in this milieu, as global tensions rise and multilateralism faces new tests, that China proposes the GGI. This is a new reform-minded, solutions-oriented vision grounded in the principles of sovereign equality, abiding by international rule of law, multilateralism, people-centered approaches, and taking real action. On the one hand, China realizes the pressing necessity of preserving the core elements of the existing global governance system. On the other hand, China recognizes that this system requires deep reforms. These are the sort of reforms that can't and shouldn't be advanced by one superpower displacing another. That's the old logic of dualism and zero-sum games. Instead, we must move forward with a principles-based approach. This includes prioritizing mutual recognition and respect, respecting differences while emphasizing common ground, and advancing win-win situations whenever possible. We must open the door for a shared future for humanity, to reject what otherwise risks a neither/nor apocalypse.
Indeed, Beijing has learned from its own experiences building and reforming an advanced modern governance system at home. It's drawn lessons from 5,000 years of traditional wisdom via the "two integrations" (integrate the basic/underlying tenets of Marxism with China’s realities and the best of its traditional culture). It has practiced "seeking truth from facts" and people-centered democracy, lifting hundreds of millions of its own citizens out of poverty without conquering or exploiting other nations. It has innovated and deployed affordable green technologies to bridge the digital divide in ecologically sustainable ways. The Belt and Road Initiative has moved the world forward economically. It's fostered new models of multilateralism, scoring incredible successes working with others to develop the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, among others. China thus appears well-prepared for advancing the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity, with more countries increasingly embracing Chinese proposals, including the GGI.
Josef Gregory Mahoney is a professor of politics and international relations and director of the Center for Ecological Civilization at East China Normal University in Shanghai. He is also a senior research fellow with the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at Southeast University in Nanjing.
来源：中国网一点号
