The Global South in Search of Leadership: A Chinese Perspective
This article analyses China’s engagement with the Global South in the context of India’s rise, evolving US policy under Trump 2.0, and competing development models.
Key Messages
• China’s core objective in engaging with members of the Global South remains the pursuit of mutual economic opportunities through trade and investment. The extensive and structural need for growth throughout the developing world creates ample space for contributions from China, India, and other emerging economies.
• By projecting a ‘collective rise of the Global South’, China offers assurance of partnership rather than a locomotive-style of stewardship in policy or material support. This can help resonate with the insistence on sovereignty and practices of poly-alignment in diplomacy.
• Development initiatives proposed by China deliver public goods in the Global South. In turn, long-term infrastructure projects can help enhance connectivity of all economies of the world.
• Some countries in the Global South may have preferred to have a China that takes clearer moral positions on incidents of injustice within or against societies in the Global South. The Chinese offer of a dialogue on civilizations is an attempt to address the imbalance between the material and ideational disconnect.
• The advent of Trump 2.0 incentivises the Global South to tone down the rhetoric for change in the international system. Meanwhile, with the prospect of Trumpian policies continuing, countries of the Global South are seeking stability by strengthening relationships amongst themselves.
Read the full article here.
This article was originally published by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung on October 7, 2025.
