By Huan Yuping, People’s Daily
Trust serves as the cornerstone of international cooperation, demanding sustained stewardship from the international community. Decades of mutual trust and cooperation among nations propelled unprecedented economic globalization and robust global growth. Yet today, trust erosion among major countries has engendered fragility in international relations and protracted sluggishness in economic recovery. This trust deficit now critically undermines world peace and development.
The collapse of confidence among major countries is fracturing the foundation of global trust, creating widespread uncertainty and deepening distrust. Certain countries, driven by hegemonic ambitions, have embraced extreme populism, strategic adventurism, and coercive unilateralism, attempting to reshape the international order through maximum pressure tactics.
By capriciously abandoning international institutions and treaties, they compromise the sanctity of the rules-based governance. They impose arbitrary tariffs and unilateral sanctions, and exert long-arm jurisdiction, leading to global trade fragmentation. Their regressive decoupling policies disrupt supply chains, building exclusionary “small yards with high fences.”
As Foreign Affairs notes, great-power competition demands persuasion, not coercion. When dominant powers instrumentalize international commitments as bargaining chips and treat global markets as their exclusive domain, they destabilize the international order, heighten market volatility, and deepen security anxieties.
Amid profound changes in the international landscape, the very concept of security has been weaponized by certain nations as a tool for geopolitical rivalry. Pursuing illusory “absolute security,” these countries have become overly defensive. Anxious about losing their dominance over the global order, they distort their risk awareness, misinterpreting interdependence as vulnerability.
Traditional security frameworks have been improperly expanded to encompass economic, trade and cultural, and scientific and technological spheres – areas historically governed by cooperation, not confrontation. By rebranding routine exchanges as “national security threats,” these nations subordinate vital global interactions to political objectives.
This abuse of the security concept triggers destabilizing cycles: strategic distrust deepens, geopolitical rivalries intensify, supply chains become tactical weapons, and military spending escalates unsustainably. Normal international engagement suffers, yielding universal losses.
As the world evolves from a single-civilization hegemony toward a multipolar order, some countries remain entrenched in the Cold War mentality. Obsessed with maintaining dominance, they stoke hostility and escalate development competition into all-out systemic confrontation. Through the relentless promotion of “threat theories” and “trap narratives,” they worsen divisions and inflame confrontations.
By building exclusive, small circles and so-called “sanctions coalitions,” these countries seek to suppress other nations’ development while propping up declining alliance systems. This deliberate creation of “civilizational superiority” and “clash of civilizations,” which weaponizes ideology to fracture the moral values of humanity, not only reveals their anxiety in the face of historical trends but also undermines the very foundation of trust that holds human society together.
Chinese President Xi Jinping insightfully noted that trust is the best adhesive in international relations. Transformation of a scale not seen in a century is accelerating across the world, and human society has once again come to a critical crossroads. The imperative now is to engage in mutual consultation, demonstrate mutual understanding, resolve the trust deficit, and rebuild global trust. The international community should coordinate efforts across four dimensions:
First, restoring trust among major countries. Major countries should lead by example, honor commitments, uphold principles, and place justice above narrow self-interest. They must acknowledge and respect the other’s core interests and major concerns, avoid crossing red lines, prevent strategic misjudgments, and ensure that competition remains manageable and does not escalate into conflict.
Second, promoting shared development. Humanity’s common interests should be recognized as the bedrock of global trust. The outdated zero-sum mentality must be completely discarded in favor of high-standard and mutually beneficial cooperation. By expanding shared interests, the international community can create an open, more inclusive global economy, where development outcomes serve as the most solid foundation for mutual trust.
Third, empowering multilateralism. The purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter must be upheld. At the same time, multilateral institutions must be reformed to enhance their representation, transparency, and effectiveness. Priority should be placed on delivering quantifiable and verifiable early gains in urgent areas such as climate change, public health, and artificial intelligence. Concrete, verifiable achievements in these domains will help reinforce the credibility and relevance of multilateralism.
Fourth, encouraging mutual learning among civilizations. Trust should be nurtured through cultural understanding and people-to-people connections. Exchanges in education, science and technology, culture, and youth should be deepened to transcend ideological divides, which will lay the most resilient foundation for enhancing global trust.
China has always been a consistent advocate and practitioner in fostering solidarity and mutual trust within the international community. Guided by the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, China has championed true multilateralism and proposed the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative, offering concrete solutions to addressing the global trust deficit.
China continues to pursue high-quality development and high-level opening up, champion universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and work to build an open world economy.
Through the green Belt and Road Initiative, China has provided and mobilized more than 177 billion yuan ($24.65 billion) of financial support to bolster climate initiatives in other developing countries. By October 2024, China had signed 53 MoUs on South-South cooperation addressing climate change with 42 developing countries.
China has introduced unilateral visa-free entry and mutual visa exemption agreements with 75 countries and brought the number of countries eligible for visa-free transit to 55, which is expected to facilitate over 10 million person-times of people-to-people exchanges annually.
These actions demonstrate that China’s commitment to global trust is not limited to rhetoric. It actively delivers tangible benefits, embodying a philosophy of mutual success: helping others to succeed is the surest path to achieving success oneself.
No one should be a bystander in rebuilding global trust. Governments, international organizations, civil society, and individual citizens share the obligation to replace prejudice with reason and dissolve suspicion with goodwill. Through sincere cooperation and shared resolve, humanity can overcome turbulence and guide our common future toward peace, stability, and sustainable prosperity.
Rebuilding global trust: an urgent imperative
