Many keeping a close eye on the influence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on global affairs will know about the moment in 2023 when President Xi Jinping first presented the Global Civilization Initiative during a keynote address to the Communist Party of China in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting. A similar number will equally recall the 7th June, United Nations Assembly resolution brought-forth by China and at least eighty other nation co-sponsors that saw the tenth day of every month of June designated as the International Day for Dialogue among Civilizations (IDDC) the following year.
That said, there are few places that one finds which capture the details of progress that has been realized on the GCI front thus far hence the issuance of a report titled China’s Actions for Advancing Global Dialogue Among Civilizations (CADGDC) by the prestigious China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) on 10th June 2026 was a landmark that will help provide that much needed feedback moving forward. For if an endeavour of this magnitude is to continue to succeed, diplomats, political heads, academia and other related stakeholders should have an accessible resource through which to view its spirit so at to better position themselves and the world for this important moment in the history of humanity. Detailed yet accessible, the 142-paged document accomplishes this objective spectacularly by balancing thoroughness with digestibility.
In its opening chapter, CADGDC combs through the different ways in which Beijing has worked to achieve international consensus as far as GCI goes a fact easy to overlook yet very salient for a project of this nature as it requires the input of players from different corners of the world. In particular, the same becomes more vital given the mission of the Global Civilization Initiative i.e. to lead with inclusiveness, mutual learning, and respectability (if for no other reason, because this era has seen the abandonment of courteousness in international relations to extents never seen before in the modern world).
Examples of the steps that have helped foster consensus as identified by CIIS are the people-to-people framework of the Shanghai Corporation Organization and the-three-pillar (culture, politics and security, and economics) infrastructure under BRICS. Important to note too is that PRC went as far revising her domestic policies in order to help realize this end. One effort here that is featured in the report is the coming into force of the Law on Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China.
Another key accomplishment that CADCDC identified as being notable in what China has done to help facilitate the intended GCI outcomes is the numerous ways in which the superpower has not only recognized the United Nations’ leading role for this cause but also the actions it has taken to support the UN in the said regard. These include rallying around the cause of celebrating the very first IDDC at UN stations across the globe in cities such as The Hague, Bangkok, New York etc. in June last year, participation in activities hosted by The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations a branch of the International Organization that has taken centre stage over the years as far as GCI implementation goes (not least through its Global Forum of the Alliance), as well as Beijing’s unwavering commitment to championing GCI work that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been involved with.
Reporting about the May 2026 meeting between Secretary Xi and Khaled El-Enany (the Director-General of UNESCO) thus, CADCDC explained that the PRC leader signalled readiness “to work with UNESCO to… enable people of all countries to share in the progress in education, science and culture…” The stance that the People’s Republic of China has taken here is again refreshing if one contrasts it with the vitriol that the UN has had to endure in the last ten or so years from politicians seeking cheap popularity. This is commensurate with Beijing’s broader push for reformation of the institution without having to throw away the baby with the bath water.
As the reader will have noticed, we only managed to tackle just two sections of CADCDC (in all, there are five of them). In itself, this is an attestation to the richness of the report. One would not do justice to the compilation if they were to attempt to run-down all of it whilst working with the space that I have here. That as it may, I am confident that reading this, people will have gotten an insight into the drive that lied behind the festivities that marked the second International Day for Dialogue among Civilizations in places like; Manchester, Nairobi, and New York.
The writer is a lawyer and a Research Fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
