From China–Europe cooperation to U.S. “Withdrawal”: An Oxford scholar says rebuilding trust is key to advancing global governance

From China–Europe cooperation to U.S. “Withdrawal”: An Oxford scholar says rebuilding trust is key to advancing global governance

Recently, Sam Daws, Senior Adviser to the Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative at the University of Oxford and Founding Director of Multilateral AI, was invited to participate in the Mingde Strategic Dialogue event, where he held in-depth exchanges with Professor Wang Wen, Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies and School of Global Leadership at Renmin University of China.

Daws noted that although global governance is currently facing significant challenges and many long-established institutions are under strain, global cooperation remains extremely important and indispensable. He emphasized that sustaining the multilateral system requires innovative approaches to cooperation.

Global cooperation remains “beyond doubt”

Wang Wen: Yes, I think many scholars from Europe and the United States could benefit from more open communication, as we’ve experienced here. For China, however, we often feel confused, because, for some reasons, exchanges with Europe and the U.S. have become increasingly difficult. Sometimes when I invite American or European friends to visit China, they might say, “We cannot come — it’s not safe!” How do you see this kind of view?

Sam Daws: For my experience of being here this week, China is a remarkably safe place to be physically safe and warmly welcomed. I think for commercial reasons, as with the U.S. ‘Entity List’, there is a lot of anxiety, particularly among the U.S. business people around that list. So from a European perspective, I think some of it stems from a misunderstanding about China. And one of the very positive things that this dialogue does is allow both Chinese and Westerners to really learn about each other. And that’s one of the first steps to rebuilding trust.

Wang Wen: Yes, indeed. Our dialogue is committed to creating genuine, direct people-to-people connections and experiences, so that we can build the trust needed to jointly respond to global crises. As you just said, much of today’s anxiety comes from a lack of trust, which seems to be “hollowing out” the global governance. How do you view this situation?

Sam Daws: Yeah, global governance is difficult, but also, global international cooperation is essential because we live on one planet. We have shared challenges in climate, biodiversity, health, food, security, agriculture, peace, conflict. So we need international institutions. I think what we’ve seen is certain countries becoming more skeptical about the value of new treaties — top-down legal treaties. So the multilateral system is needing to come up with new innovative ways to cooperate. I think we’ve seen some very positive things in terms of new science platforms — for example, the United Nations is establishing mechanisms and platforms related to artificial intelligence, and China is also helping to set up international cooperation organizations for AI governance.

U.S. disengaged from global governance. What impact will follow?

Wang Wen: Yes, what you just said is very important. In terms of global governance, we have a great deal of room for cooperation. But one of the most serious problem now is the retreat of the United States. The U.S. has announced its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). These withdrawals have had a huge impact on global governance. What do you think of this phenomenon?

Sam Daws: I think we're going through a challenging time for traditional multilateral organizations. We must also remember that while the U.S. has disengaged from some institutions, they're still an active member and contributor to many other UN specialized agencies. And other 192 countries have not left any of the agencies, so there's plenty that we can do in the rest of the world at the moment. We see this even within the United States. While the federal government has signaled its intention to leave the Paris Agreement, individual states such as California, New York and others remain actively involved in the transition to net zero through their mayors and state assemblies.

Wang Wen: Yes, there may indeed still be room for strengthening cooperation. But is there any way to bring the United States back to the big family of global governance?

Sam Daws: I think we need to actually reframe the value of international cooperation to those people in the middle of America who felt left behind. I think that is part of the journey to bring the U.S. back to the table. I'll give you a practical example of that on climate change: if you frame the energy transition as actually about energy security, then it can resonate with people who worry about high energy bills and uncertainty of the world. So I think the center-right can also be supportive of action on climate change. So I think we need to have empathy, and we need to be more creative in how we design international institutions.

China: under-promised and over-delivered

Wang Wen: What new areas of growth do you see in China–Europe cooperation on global governance? What new opportunities could help both sides work together more smoothly?

Sam Daws: I think there's some wonderful opportunities for enhanced collaboration. The first is on trade — enhancing the amount of trade between Europe, the UK and China in both products and services. The second is joint action on climate change and biodiversity. The third is on prevention of health crises. The fourth is working together on conflict resolution around the world in Africa and elsewhere. I think we can really collaborate. China has become more involved in UN peacekeeping and UN mediation. We can work together. Fifthly, science. I think science has become, alongside international law, a very important neutral testing ground for international agreements, because you can use science data and facts to bring accountability into the actions of countries when they agree to things.

China is one of the few—perhaps the only—country that's always under-promised and over-delivered on its contributions to the Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change, and I think that's very admirable. And we are seeing new science panels flourishing within the UN system, including those on AI, biodiversity and other areas, and I believe these can help us find common grounds even in today’s geopolitical situations. So I think those are all areas for enhanced China–Europe cooperation.

(The viewpoints reflected in this article are exclusively the speaker's own and do not represent any official stance or viewpoint of Ecns.)