The Commentary "One Belt And One Road" Initiative Has Promoted The Practice Of "Experimentalism Governance" In The Whole World.

Jiang Yuhao (School of public policy, South China University of Technology)

On April 26th, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the second "one belt and one way" International Cooperation summit. He said: "the globalized economy needs the governance of globalization. China will strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination with the major economies of the world, and strive to create positive spillover effects and jointly promote the strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth of the world economy.

This is the elucidation of the "global view of CO governance and co construction and sharing" advocated by China in recent years in the international economic field, and reveals China's policy and path to promote "joint efforts to meet all kinds of risks and challenges faced by mankind and achieve mutual benefit and common development".

The new situation is transforming the global governance structure.

At present, the global governance structure is facing dramatic changes, and the instability and uncertainty of threats to world peace and development are becoming increasingly prominent. The old global governance mechanism has been proved unable to adapt to changes in global economic and social structure and technological progress.

It is precisely in response to this pressing situation and historical opportunity that China has proposed in recent years "to uphold the concept of global governance with shared construction and sharing", advocating democratization of international relations, and work together with people of all countries to promote the construction of the destiny community of mankind. This global governance plan, which embodies the wisdom of China, provides a new way of thinking for solving the difficulties of the peace and development process that human society faces today.

As we all know, technological progress has driven the sharp drop in the cost of information exchange worldwide, so that different links of manufacturing the same product can be spread to different parts of the world. Driven by this globalization force, the situation of simultaneous industrialization in the north and industrialization in the South has resulted in the reconstruction of global value chain that we often say: R & D remains in developed countries and concentrated in a few regions (such as Silicon Valley); manufacturing is distributed in less developed countries and presents a trend of continuous flow towards low cost areas (forming a pattern of "competing times").

It should be said that in this round of globalization, less developed countries and regions share a considerable part of their interests with their labor cost advantages and resource advantages, and take the leading position in some industries and fields. According to Professor Richard Badwin of Richard Baldwin, the world's richest group of seven countries occupied the 2/3 of global manufacturing profits before 1990, and dropped to about 1/2 after 1990. At the same time, the share of 6 developing countries represented by China rose to 30% in 2010, of which China accounted for 20%.

In this round of globalization, there is also a trend of "counter globalization", which is becoming more and more intense in recent years. The imbalance of economic and social development caused by the process of "de industrialization" in the west is the core reason for stimulating this adverse trend. In recent years, international academic circles have published some research results, which have aroused wide discussion.

Professor Roberto Unger (Roberto M. Unger) of Harvard University pointed out in the recent "knowledge economy" that the new information and communication technology revolution characterized by Silicon Valley is an advanced mode of production, but the advanced technology threshold and institutional barriers make the advanced production mode limited to some frontier production areas at present, and the population that can directly benefit from it is very limited.

Recently, many researchers have pointed out that the significant development of information technology may lead to another profound reconstruction of the industrial value chain. For example, with the rapid development of 3D printing technology, the cost of manufacturing industry may be greatly reduced. A new "Reindustrialization" mode may appear: because of the breakthroughs in the invention and manufacturing technology of new materials, the more convenient manufacturing and R & D are reassembled in the same place. If this understanding is correct, countries around the world will be deeply immersed in the dilemma of technological competition and inability to cooperate.

In any case, the new situation of global economic development and technological revolution has put forward the new requirements of globalized economic governance. The proposal to jointly build "one belt and one road" to open up new space for world economic growth, and the principle of sharing and sharing principles in various forms of cooperation is exactly what our country has proposed for the world to meet the requirements of this era.

Solving collective action problems with "experimentalism governance"

Since World War II, the global governance system has undergone different stages of development, such as the cold war, the post Cold War and the new century. At present, the "failure" phenomenon of the global governance mechanism has become increasingly prominent. The game of sovereignty based on interests has led to the difficult outcome of multilateral consultations, and the complexity of the new transnational governance network has intensified the coordination difficulty. Against this background, China has put forward a new idea of "Global Governance View of CO building and sharing", which has epoch-making historical significance.

First, whether the global governance mechanism as a public product can continue to supply depends on the extent of the collective action of the international community, and playing the active role of a responsible big country is an important condition for solving the problem of collective action. Because of this, China's new concept of global governance, on the one hand, shows the determination to lead the reform of the global governance system. On the other hand, it emphasizes the importance of democratization of state relations and calls for equal participation in global governance by all countries, so as to provide effective support for the international community to enter the "Kindleberger trap".

Second, the leading position of the Western powers is declining globally. The vacuum at the value level has created a good opportunity for the equal existence of multiple values. Unlike the Western values of freedom and democracy, which are binding on universalism, hegemonism and formalism, the Chinese wisdom and Oriental values contained in the Chinese plan have more inclusive characteristics and are more suitable for the new global governance situation with multi polar coexistence and equality and mutual benefit.

Thirdly, most of the global problems can be attributed to development issues. This requires a large country with good domestic governance achievements to demonstrate the quality of other developing countries and regions. China's achievements in development and lessons learned in its development can enrich the knowledge base of human civilization related to economic, social and political development, and provide a reference for the international community that also faces development challenges.

Promoting the "global governance concept of CO building and sharing" requires institutional and policy tools. In seeking cooperation in the multipolar world, we must consider how to solve the problem of collective action at the international level in a systematic way. One of the solutions is to build a public policy mechanism of "experimentalism governance" to promote pluralistic actors to participate in a common cause.

"Experimentalism governance" emphasizes interaction and interchangeability between ends and means: choosing means to achieve goals according to purpose, and revising and improving the purpose according to the implementation of means. Generally speaking, it can be divided into four steps: first, through negotiation and communication, it is not mandatory to form a framework policy objective among many participating countries; secondly, each participating country formulates and promotes the plan to promote the policy target according to its own conditions; thirdly, it sets up a representative wide evaluation team to measure the actual situation of various countries in implementing the policy goal, popularize the more effective ways, and analyze the implementation of the ineffective schemes to promote rectification; fourth, according to the problems encountered in the execution level of various countries, it carries out research and correction on the various countries' practical solutions and framework policy objectives, and corrections the inappropriate demands. This is the "decision execution evaluation feedback and perfection", which forms a spiral upward dynamic circular relationship between the four steps, continuously promoting the role exchange of the participants, aiming at collectively facing the problem, realizing the overall cooperation and the respective interests of each participating country.

"Experimentalism governance" has played a role in global governance under the new situation. For example, at the Paris climate conference held at the end of 2015, there was no adoption of a treaty requiring international emission reduction, but a emission reduction plan by members participating in their respective commitments according to their own circumstances (more than 150 participants submitted emission reduction plans), and an agreement to solve the problem of financing and technology transfer from developed countries to developing countries was reached.

In the multipolar world pattern, the "experimentalism governance" mode has obvious advantages: on the one hand, highly respect the independence of different countries and fully consider the differences in the specific conditions of each country; on the other hand, in the absence of power fragmentation of the independent international public goods provided by the superpowers, a platform for mutual cooperation and mutual promotion is established for all countries.

The way of global governance cooperation advocated by China is exactly the spirit of "experimentalism governance".

Promoting more democratic and equitable international relations

China has made many efforts in participating in global governance and has achieved some results. In recent years, China has steadily increased its influence in multilateral mechanisms, including actively participating in the reform of international financial institutions, expanding participation in UN peacekeeping operations, coordinating the relations between developed and emerging countries within the framework of G20, and promoting a consensus on major global governance such as the Paris agreement with a highly responsible attitude.

At the same time, with the help of innovative means, China has proposed to establish some new global governance mechanisms, such as the "one belt and one way" initiative, and the establishment of an Asian infrastructure investment bank (AIIB) and other institutions to improve the platform construction at the global and regional levels.

In addition, China has begun to focus on the global governance content beyond the institutional framework, such as taking the initiative to share international experience in governance, setting up a national development knowledge centre, and accelerating the introduction of Chinese experience to the world.

China also strongly advocates expanding global governance issues and expanding cooperation opportunities. At the beginning of 2017, President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech entitled "building a community of human destiny" in United Nations Headquarters. He mentioned that we should uphold the principles of peace, sovereignty, inclusive and co governance, and build a new frontier for cooperation among the deep sea, polar regions, outer space and the Internet. In 2018, the Davos forum chose the China plan to set the theme of the annual forum "creating a common destiny in a differentiated world".

It is particularly worth noting that all the policies and measures proposed by China reflect the core elements of experimentalism governance. For example, the guiding principle of "one belt and one road" financing, which was signed in 2017, put forward that governments along the line should strengthen policy communication, consolidate cooperation intentions and jointly release positive signals to support the construction and financing of "one belt and one road". At the same time, we should respect the autonomy and independence of various countries in implementing their programmes, such as the fourth one, "encourage common countries to establish common platforms, and jointly formulate regional infrastructure development strategies or plans on the basis of promoting regional development strategies and investment plans." More importantly, there are fourteenth and fifteen requirements. According to the social environmental impact and universality of the financing project, the plan and Framework objectives of the project are evaluated and corrected.

In this kind of experimentalism governance mode, China needs positive action and active investment as an exemplary model, but it does not create a burden for the participating countries at the same time, but encourages it to implement the "unilateral action" which is most conducive to itself in the application of the advantageous resources and development opportunities in the new situation, and to cooperate with the international community in various forms. In order to promote more democratic and equitable international relations in the new situation of globalization, China must adhere to the different leadership styles of the "superpower" leadership of the former superpowers.

In short, in order to deal with the difficult problems of peace and development that mankind is facing in the new situation of globalization, we must break the dilemma of collective action in a multipolar world. China must shoulder the responsibility of promoting the democratization transformation of international cooperation.

In the keynote speech of this year's "one belt and one way" summit, President Xi Jinping quoted the words of the ancients in ancient China, saying that "all things are natural and they are all successful". They stressed that the goal of building a "one belt and one road" framework is to conform to the historical trend of economic globalization, comply with the requirements of the reform of the global governance system, and comply with the strong desire of all peoples to live a better life.

The experience of China's participation in and guidance of new global governance shows that promoting this policy goal conducive to the interests of ordinary citizens of the world requires continuous measures of "experimentalism governance" to attract active participation from participating countries and set up an open and fair evaluation mechanism for the continuous improvement of collective actions.