China’s Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI) in a realist world: Asean's pragmatic choice

Beijing launched its Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI), calling for equality between civilisations, mutual learning and dialogue, rejecting any claim that one civilisation is superior, and insisting that modernisation should not follow only a Western path.

Together with the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Governance Initiative (GGI), it is presented by Chinese officials as one of four global initiatives to tackle the world’s major problems: development to fight poverty, security to prevent war, civilisation to discuss values, and governance to fix gaps in global institutions.

From a "peaceful rise" to the idea of a community with a shared future for mankind, China has spent the last two decades trying to persuade the world that its rise is not a traditional bid for hegemony, but a more moderate way of becoming a great power.

In this story, the GCI is not a brand-new idea, but the latest chapter and the one that talks most explicitly about civilisation and values.

Critics of the GCI warn that this initiative is not always harmless. In an essay titled "The Trouble with China’s Global Civilisation Initiative", American scholar R. Evan Ellis notes that GCI describes peace, development, justice, democracy and freedom as common aspirations of all humanity, but also stresses that each country understands these ideas differently and must be free to choose its own model.

In his view, this kind of civilisational pluralism may weaken the post-war rules-based international order, because once almost anything can be framed as "civilisational difference", where criticism of domestic repression or external aggression can be dismissed as disrespect for another civilisation.

Such concerns have sharpened in recent years, amid a series of wars and military interventions.

From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to Israel’s war in Gaza, to the 2026 US raid in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro, and large-scale Israeli strikes on Iranian targets with American support, many governments have quietly started to ask themselves whether their militaries are strong enough to deter the next "sudden strike".

In today's world, states have become more accustomed to relying on force and deterrence. Power politics and offensive realist thinking often seem to explain great power behaviour better than any civilisational manifesto.

Those who are willing to use force or break the rules can often reshape the strategic landscape.

John Mearsheimer, the leading proponent of "offensive realism", famously argued that a rising China cannot rise peacefully and will seek regional hegemony when the balance of power allows.

In his worldview, great powers do not have permanent friends, only temporary partners.

Yet at the same time, the Trump era in the United States, with its trade wars, treaty withdrawals and open disregard for international law, has badly damaged Washington’s moral authority to speak for a rules-based order.

Against that backdrop, China’s narrative of "peaceful development" and its defence of the multilateral trading system under the United Nations and World Trade Organisation can sound attractive to some small and middle powers.

The fact that Beijing still talks about multilateralism and civilisational dialogue makes it look, at least on paper, a little less frightening than a superpower that openly puts "America First".

This ambivalence shows up very clearly in South-East Asian opinion surveys. Comparing the 2025 and 2026 State of South-East Asia Survey Reports by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, it can be seen that China and the United States continue to dominate perceptions of political and economic influence in the region.

Yet when respondents were asked which side they would choose if they had to align with either China or the United States, the answers flipped within just two years.

In the 2025 survey, 52.3% chose the United States and 47.7% chose China. In the 2026 survey, 52% chose China and 48% chose the United States instead.

The gap is small, but the reversal is telling.

In an age of tariffs, technology controls and recurring security crises, South-East Asian states are constantly weighing economic dependence against security concerns, and their preferences are fluid rather than fixed.

Equally important, the same surveys repeatedly show that when given a third option, many South-East Asian elites say they would prefer Asean itself to lead the regional order, rather than China or the United States.

In 2026, 55.2% of respondents said Asean should enhance its resilience and unity to fend off pressure from the major powers.

In other words, neither the Western talk of a liberal rules-based order nor China’s talk of civilisational mutual learning will be fully persuasive if they cannot address South-East Asia’s own security anxieties, economic dilemmas and lived experience of plural societies.

Seen from this angle, the real question may not be whether China has a convincing civilisation narrative, but whether all major powers, China and Western countries alike, are willing to let their behaviour be constrained by the values they claim to uphold.

That includes accepting criticism and correction from regions like South-East Asia, whose societies are both diverse and sophisticated.

If one side is only willing to intimidate others with force, while the other side claims it wants to persuade others in the name of civilisation, then the GCI cannot just remain a set of elegant diplomatic phrases.

It has to become a set of rules and practices that great powers are prepared to apply to themselves, and not only to others.

Whether the GCI can go further in South-East Asia will not be decided by how many times Beijing mentions "mutual learning among civilisations" in international conferences.

It will depend on whether or not, in concrete issues such as the South China Sea, digital sovereignty and regional security, China is ready to let civilisational dialogue translate into real, verifiable constraints on its own actions and to share the normative stage with Asean.

If that happens, the GCI could evolve from a declaratory slogan into a meaningful platform where hard interests are balanced, and sometimes softened, by a genuine commitment to coexistence and mutual respect.

Dr Liaw Siau Chi is an Associate Professor at New Era University College. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

The SEARCH Scholar Series is a social responsibility programme jointly organised by the South-East Asia Research Centre for Humanities (SEARCH) and the Centre of Business and Policy Research, Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology (TAR UMT).