Politics
Global Unity Starts with Equal Opportunities
Proposing the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) at the “Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus” meeting in Tianjin, Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted five principles for the Initiative: to adhere to sovereign equality, to abide by international rule of law, to practice multilateralism, to advocate the people-centered approach, and to focus on taking real actions.
Reforming and improving the current global governance system starts from pursuing equality and should strive for a new system that benefits all. This is not only China’s belief, but also a principle China has acted on as a decades-long practitioner of global governance.
Equality in global governance first and foremost means all nations, regardless of political or economic system, size, history or religion, are entitled with equal rights to sovereignty and development. More importantly, it means all nations have equal rights in choosing their own national paths of development and political system. Their choices in building up a national system based on their own history, culture, tradition and national conditions should be respected. Equality would only ring hollow if such rights were not guaranteed.
This principle of equality proposed in China’s GGI is a reflection of the fundamental realities of our world today.
The first reality we need to confront is that inequality is a feature that defines our age. Although tech innovation under globalization may provide opportunities for Global South countries to overcome their disadvantaged position in a stratified global trading system, Global North countries have continued to dominate the system through their accumulated advantages in capital, human resources and knowledge. A report in January this year by the World Bank found that due to barriers in trade, tech and others, the overall economic growth for developing economies dropped from 5.9 percent in the 2000s to 5.1 percent in the 2010s to 3.5 percent in the 2020s. The gap between rich and poor countries has only widened. Adding to the disparity among countries, the income inequality within nations remains constant. A May report by the UN this year discovered that two-thirds of the world’s population live in countries where income inequality is growing and more than a third of the world’s population lives on between 2.15 and 6.85 dollars a day.
Another reality we need to acknowledge is that while the evolving issues of our shared future such as urbanization or the global decarbonization cause might provide chances for equalization, they also pose risks for further marginalization for the already disadvantaged down the road. Take the ongoing revolution brought about by artificial intelligence (AI) as an example. World Bank data shows that compared to 80 percent and 93 percent in upper-middle and high-income nations, internet access is just 27 percent in low-income countries and 52 percent in lower-middle-income countries. Thus, high-income countries are holding a distinct advantage in capitalizing on the values brought by AI thanks to their superior digital infrastructure and abundant AI development resources. Plus, AI is challenging development models in emerging markets that previously relied on export-oriented manufacturing by making manufacturing more technology and capital intensive. The traditional way of using more labor to improve productivity is gradually running out of time, which will be particularly hard for these economies moving forward.
In its decades of practices in global governance, China has been providing its answers to the question of equality. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, equality has stayed at the core of China’s foreign policy, evident in several key policy proposals such as the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” a community with a shared future for humanity, etc. A member of the Global South community itself, China also pursued equitable global governance by advocating the rights of the Global South. China has pushed for stronger representation of Global South countries within multilateral mechanisms such as the reform of the International Monetary Fund, and supporting the African Union in becoming a G20 member, among others. China also gave its support to the growth of under-developed economies over the years. For instance, starting from December 2024, China granted zero-tariff treatment to all the least developed countries in Africa with which it has diplomatic relations on 100 percent of their products.
In all, confronting the disparity and unfairness in the global governance system we have now and upholding the principle of equal rights for all is a premise for improving it. It is also one of the starting points of the Global Governance Initiative that China has just proposed.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer put the blame firmly on foreign ministry officials on Monday over the appointment of a US ambassador, saying they had withheld information about Labour veteran Peter Mandelson that would have halted his employment.
Starmer, under pressure to resign by political opponents over the scandal, has repeatedly sought to defend his role in the appointment of Mandelson and turned to parliament to set out his case that he was unaware that foreign ministry officials had been advised not to give security clearance to him.
He again said he regretted appointing Mandelson, whom he sacked in September after revelations about the depth of his ties to the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The events have prompted questions about the prime minister’s judgment, which resurfaced when the government said last week it had just found out Mandelson had failed a security vetting process.
On Monday, Starmer again expressed his anger over not being told by foreign ministry officials that in January 2025, they had disregarded advice and decided to grant Mandelson what is known as “developed vetting” clearance, a status that allows individuals access to information regarded as top secret.
“It beggars belief that throughout the whole timeline of events, officials in the foreign office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system in government,” Starmer told parliament.
“That is not how the vast majority of people in this country expect politics, government or accountability to work.”
Starmer says he would not have appointed him if he had known
An appointment that once was hailed as a stroke of genius for employing a Labour veteran with trade experience who could win over incoming US President Donald Trump has turned out to be an ongoing nightmare for Starmer.
Trump, in a post on Truth Social, agreed that the appointment was a “really bad pick.”
“Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom acknowledged that he ‘exercised wrong judgement’ when he chose his Ambassador to Washington. I agree, he was a really bad pick. Plenty of time to recover, however!”, he said.
Starmer said he would not have appointed Mandelson if he had known the UK Security Vetting unit had advised that he should not gain the necessary clearance and that he had stopped the foreign office from being able to go against such advice in future.
Starmer, whose popularity has sunk since he won a landslide majority for Labour at a national election in 2024, had previously told parliament all due process had been followed over Mandelson.
Earlier, his spokesperson said: “The PM would never knowingly mislead parliament or the public … He clearly did not have this information when he previously spoke to parliament.”
After last week’s revelations that the foreign office had overridden a warning that Mandelson should not be appointed, Starmer sacked Olly Robbins, Britain’s top foreign ministry official, who the prime minister said had signed off on a statement on Mandelson clearing the vetting process.
Robbins has yet to make a formal statement on his sacking, but friends of his have been reported as saying he had followed the usual procedure, which allowed the foreign office to overrule advice from UK Security Vetting.
Opponents have accused Starmer of lying and incompetence, and say his position is no longer tenable.
Three weeks before local elections in which Labour is expected to suffer heavy losses, the resurgence of the scandal has triggered new questions about Starmer’s grip on government, although no senior Labour lawmakers have urged him to go.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, accused Starmer of failing to face up to the consequences of his action.
“It is how you face up to those mistakes that shows the character of a leader,” she told parliament. “Instead of taking responsibility for the decisions he made, the prime minister has thrown his staff, and his officials, under the bus.”
ATHENS: Fraudulent messages promising safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for cryptocurrency have been sent to some shipping companies whose vessels are stranded west of the waterway, Greek maritime risk management firm MARISKS has warned.
The US has maintained its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran has lifted and then re-imposed its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed before war broke out in the Middle East.
Amid ceasefire talks, Tehran, which controls the chokepoint, has proposed tolls on vessels to safely transit.
MARISKS on Monday issued an alert warning shipowners that unknown actors, claiming to represent Iranian authorities, had sent some shipping companies a message demanding transit fees in cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin or Tether, for “clearance”.
“These specific messages are a scam,” the firm said, adding the message was not sent by Iranian authorities.
There was no immediate comment from Tehran.
Hundreds of ships and about 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Gulf.
On April 18, when Iran briefly opened the strait subject to checks, ships tried to pass but at least two of them, including a tanker, reported that Iranian boats had fired shots at them, forcing the vessels to turn around.
MARISKS said that it believed that at least one of the vessels, which tried to exit the strait on Saturday and was hit by gunfire, was a victim of the fraud.
Reuters was not able to verify the information or track companies that had received the message.
“After providing the documents and assessing your eligibility by the Iranian Security Services, we will be able to determine the fee to be paid in cryptocurrency (BTC or USDT). Only then will your vessel be able to transit the strait unimpeded at the pre-agreed time,” said the message cited by MARISKS.
The UN Security Council on Monday condemned the recent killing of a French peacekeeper in Lebanon, whose death France has blamed on Hezbollah.
The Frenchman was killed and three others wounded when their unit was ambushed on Saturday as it headed to a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) outpost cut off from the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.
“The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the attack…(and) reaffirmed their full support for UNIFIL” a statement from the UN body said.
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