China's Rise as Norm Builder; Common Strategies for India and Europe

Any rising power seeks to craft its path and narrative. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) now has the financial and diplomatic capacity and experience to back its aspirations: As international politics are rapidly transforming China sees a window of opportunity to shape the global system. To avoid being labelled a revisionist power, Beijing pursues a strategy of incrementalism. 

This piece will first elaborate how China challenges the UN Charta-based international order, especially through its development policy. It will cover Chinese norm building activities in different issue areas. And finally, the piece will delineate areas of cooperation for India and Europe in order to deal with these challenges.

Chinese Aspirations

China is no longer hiding the aspirations that it wants to shape the world. China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI) and other initiatives are a part of the Chinese conceptualization of the expression used by Xi Jinping and others, “the world today is undergoing major changes unseen in a century” in which the party faces “unprecedented opportunities and unprecedented challenges”  (Wang, 2023). In this vein, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi speech argues that “Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy” provides, “China’s answer to the question of our times—what kind of world we should build and how we should build it”  (Wang Yi, 2025).

Wang also describes how China intends to achieve its goal. He adds, “China will work with other countries to build a community with a shared future for mankind, forge partnerships across the world, enhance friendship and cooperation, and explore a new path of growing state-to-state relations based on mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation.”

Overall, China’s promotion of an alternative order is based on five major principles. 

1. Discrediting of Liberal Norms and Values, framing them as destabilizing and exclusionary.
2. Expanding Core Interests Framework to position potential military actions as legitimate enforcement of global norms.
3. Selective Usage and Support of International Law: China invokes the UN Charter and international law to legitimize its actions, while reinterpreting these principles to serve its interests.
4. Changing the Vocabulary of the United Nations: Through personnel politics, lobbying and consistent strategic communication, China is promoting a redefinition of UN Charta principles.
5. Outreach to the Global South: China mobilizes support among developing countries, offering capacity-building, security assistance, and dedicated multilateral platforms as alternatives to Western-dominated institutions.

China’s global development policy is a unifying theme throughout the five principles. The rest of this article will therefore focus on China’s global development agenda – with a particular focus on the normative challenge posed by GDI – as China intends to repurpose the concept of 'democracy' in order to displace the liberal pillars on which the current global order rests. 

A Different Development Model

China uses GDI to argue that development is a priority above everything else, which is in direct contrast to liberal development models that include preconditions regarding the rule of law or democratic governance reforms for projects, grants and other forms of cooperation. Chinese commentators have argued that “… certain nations' pursuit of absolute security at others' expense has fuelled geopolitical tensions, while narratives framing global politics as a binary clash between so-called "democracy and autocracy" exacerbate fears of civilizational conflict” (Zheng, 2025). The GDI concept paper argues “Development is the master key to all problems, and it is also the prerequisite for safeguarding world peace and protecting and promoting human rights. We need to focus on development, prioritize development cooperation in global macro-policy coordination, and solve outstanding problems and challenges in national governance through development” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, 2021). Thus, it separates development from the national regime itself. In this regard, GDI undermines existing liberal norms and pushes the idea that democracy is not a prerequisite for economic growth.

Hollowing Out the Concept of Democracy

At the heart of China’s problematic reinterpretation of democracy lies the importance placed on “effective” governance. Along these lines, China uses the GDI as a vehicle to reimagine and repurpose the concept of democracy. Beyond the development context, Chinese documents have also spoken of a concept of “whole-process democracy”. In December 2021 China’s State Council also published a white paper titled “China: Democracy that works”, making several major assertions on what China sees as democracy and how it should be appraised. It challenges the notion that global norms are collectively established by the international community, and says: “whether a country is democratic should be judged by its people, not dictated by a handful of outsiders”. It also states that “Democracy is not a decorative ornament, but an instrument for addressing the issues that concern the people”. 

Whose Values should Enjoy Global Validity? 

China argues that concepts like peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom while global, should be interpreted according to national conditions and circumstances – thus, in effect, denying these values global validity. By doing so, China can exploit long-standing Western double standards and present a united front with the Global South. Like India and many others, China can argue that the inclusive development of many countries was delayed and that global inequality increased. However, China goes far beyond other developing countries in presenting its vision of global 'modernisation', which essentially provides a logical counterpart to its discourse on development. 

During the 19th National Congress of the CPC held in 2017, Xi said, “…the path, the theory, the system, and the culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics have kept developing, blazing a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernization.” This was widely seen as China exporting its model of growth to the developing world and this attracted a lot of global attention and concern. Through initiatives like GDI, and the popularizing of concepts like ‘whole-process democracy’, it appears as if China is doing this again, although incrementally. GDI documents claim that “while promoting its own growth, China has always cared about developing countries and tried its best to help them achieve joint development through trade, investment, aid, and sharing knowledge of development” (Xinhua Institute, 2023). The 2025 Xiangshan Forum can be seen as a watershed moment. There, the China’s defence minister Dong Jun openly questioned the Western-led systems as being dated as well as divisive and also argued that China was a natural leader of an alternate order. Chinese propaganda thus tends to reproduce the very binary of ‘democracies versus autocracies’ it criticizes – while allowing China to portray its anti-liberal agenda in a way that can appeal to audiences in the global south. This has direct consequences for global human rights norms. GDI treats “development as a prerequisite for protecting and promoting human rights”. It challenges the universality of human rights and prefers to speak of sovereignty as a priority. 

China’s latter communicative strategy is particularly successful because the country has had demonstrable successes in the field of climate change- and clean energy transitions.  Its leverage over clean energy, particularly electric vehicle markets around the world, and its domination of the rare earth supply-chain are well known. This substantial impact on global development allows Beijing to shape global discourses on climate change and other issue areas of international concern. Implementing SDGs (sustainable development goals) is one such area in which China has taken the lead in policy formulation and implementation, and it has accelerated its outreach on this especially as the United States has withdrawn from its global climate leadership under the conservative and protectionist turn, especially under the leadership of President Donald Trump. SDG implementation is estimated to be a $7 billion market annually and China dominates these sectors in terms of rhetoric, technology and policy. 

Despite a clash between Chinese words and deeds, China has found a significant audience among countries which had lacked adequate development support thus far. China’s technological success – aided by the “West’s” past failures to support global development – allows for a new narrative of modernization that is anti-liberal in nature. This logical connection is neither inevitable nor desirable. In order to push back, the Global South, middle powers and advanced industrialised nations must work together to counter the new binaries created by China, and reinvent narratives for green and democratic global development. As discussed above, China's ability to push the current world order in a less liberal direction will largely depend on the political success of its 'development' agenda.

Future Cooperation Strategies between Europe and India

Having discussed the ways China is attempting to shape world order, the next section will highlight suggestions on issue areas in which Europe and India can work together. Both are faced with the above-described challenges. It is time they increased cooperation. Ahead of the EU-India summit in January 2026, here are eight promising areas for cooperation (Council of the European Union, 2025).

1. Celebration of Liberal Democratic Model and Practices:  There is a significant attraction of China’s authoritarian efficiency in the developing world, including in India. This trend needs to be taken seriously. Europe and India should collaborate to emphasise the importance of the rule of law in ensuring that people can benefit fairly from development. This could include discussions about the rights of minorities in our respective societies, or specific issues related to China, such as the rights and future of Tibetans in exile, or the fate of the Uighurs. This way, China’s claims of being a true democracy can be countered, as China’s global initiatives discussed above aim to popularise the Chinese model in the guise of sharing Chinese wisdom and developmental experience. For both India and Europe, Taiwan can also be a good and useful partner to challenge the Chinese narrative of being a champion of democracy. Promoting the rights of the Taiwanese population can be a good way to do that.
2. Develop a shared vision of 'modernity' that appeals to audiences in both the Global South and Europe. Show that contributions to a fair and just green transition can be made within a democratic and legal framework and reinforce each other.
3. SDG Implementation Strategies: In this sector, Europe and India can work on developing green finance strategies to create more viable, inclusive and sustainable alternatives to the Chinese initiatives. There are significant opportunities in training, education, knowledge creation and awareness building (SDG4) aside from the business of SDG implementation itself. Clean Energy (SDG7) gives opportunity to work in the sector of solar, wind and small hydropower sectors, smart grids, and energy efficiency technologies. Sustainable cities (SDG11) offer opportunities in solid waste management, green construction, smart mobility, affordable housing and importantly in circular economy sector. This can be through a cooperation strategy for the global south with an incubation and training capacity located in a developing country. EU’s initiatives like the Global Gateway which also focuses on aspects of “rule of law, human rights and international norms and standards” (European Commission, n.d.) can be a partner institution in this process.
4. Supply Chain Resilience Strategies: Europe and India face supply chain risks in APIs (application programming interface), automobiles among other sectors. By working on creating resilience strategies, they can also help other countries to balance their dependence on China. Here countries like South Korea which look to hedge can be brought onboard for cooperation as well.  
5. AI Governance and Ethical AI Strategies: At the same time as the world grapples with AI there is a need to govern it as well. Transparency of AI’s usage and data sources, copyright infringement, exposure and political sensitivity and transparency of AI’s outputs, gender implication of AI, deepfakes and political narrative setting, and the danger of misinformation, are the areas where there is – so far – little coordination and cooperation to build strategies. This is another sector where India and Europe can work together to develop the norms and balance China’s leadership in the sector.
6. Sustainable Fisheries: There is a need to cooperate here to build strategies, training and capacity building for island nations and littorals in the Indian Ocean as they face grey zone strategies by China, its fishing militia and sustained surveillance in the Indian Ocean region.
7. Oceanic Governance Strategies: China has been promoting several ocean governance strategies on its own and it will have implications across the world. However, there are two regions where the implications are certain to be most acute, and these are the arctic and the Indian Ocean. In both of these areas, China has pushed what it calls its rightful role as a resident actor, which is not the case. This creates an urgent balancing need. The Chinese narrative needs to be countered through a carefully calibrated strategy.
8. Good Order at Sea Doctrine for the Indian Ocean: For various reasons, including historic and lack of trust with China, even India is reluctant to formulate a doctrine for the Indian Ocean. However, there is a need to deepen the regional protocol in incidents management and de-risking at sea in the Indian Ocean region. Here, a part of the task will also be to bring India onboard for a broader regional policy doctrine.
9. Connectivity Partnership: The 2021 India-EU Connectivity Partnership was a good step in a right direction. It needs to undertake action-oriented strategies and have a timeline that increases stakeholder confidence and creates accountability as well. India and Europe may also need to shoulder the full leadership of the IMEC (India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor) should the US opt out of its commitments here.

These nine aspects also reflect the core areas highlighted in the Strategic EU-India Agenda as it focusses on working together to deliver “mutually beneficial and transformative outcomes for both partners and for the wider world” (Council of the European Union, 2025). Europe and India share several common concerns like upholding a rules-based international order, balancing their interests between the US and China, and sustainable development, among others. The Joint Communication on “A New Strategic EU-India Agenda” is a step in the direction of increased cooperation. But the real work starts after the EU-India summit.

References

Council of the European Union. (2025, October 20). New strategic EU-India agenda: Council approves conclusions - Consilium. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025/10/20/new-…

European Commission. (n.d.). Global Gateway - European Commission. Retrieved December 30, 2025, from https://commission.europa.eu/topics/international-partnerships/global-g…

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC. (2021). Global Development Initiative-Building on 2030 SDGs for Stronger, Greener and Healthier Global Development. https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zy/jj/GDI_140002/wj/202406/P0202406066061934…

Wang, H. (2023). ‘Security Is a Prerequisite for Development’: Consensus-Building toward a New Top Priority in the Chinese Communist Party. Journal of Contemporary China, 32(142), 525–539. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2022.2108681

Wang Yi. (2025, February). Holding High the Banner of Building a Community with a Shared Future For Mankind and Striving for Greater Achievements In Major-Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics_Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjbzhd/202501/t20250127_11546599.html

Xinhua Institute. (2023). The Practical Achievements and Global Contributions of the Global Development Initiative. https://no.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/lcbt/lcwj/202401/P02024011201779787…

Zheng, T. (2025, July 24). Contemporary significance of China’s three global initiatives. People’s Daily. https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0724/c90000-20344568.html