We live at a critical point of the global age. Our hyperconnected world today is threatened by detrimental challenges such as protectionism, terrorism, climate change and identity crisis. China, a country deeply rooted in the value of harmony, is now playing a crucial role to lead peaceful development.

These ideas form the foundation of eminent British scholar Martin Albrow’s latest book, China’s Role in a Shared Human Future, published in April during the London Book Fair.

Its publication could not be timed better. US President Donald Trump’s trade protectionism rhetoric in recent weeks has spurred worldwide worries that the United States, once a champion of globalization, has lost the plot. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, once the Great British Empire and a catalyst to growing international connectivity, is now battling with Brexit uncertainties.

Within this context, Albrow argues that China is ready to assume a leadership role, to promote international unity and win-win partnerships. This trajectory is also coherent with China’s reform and opening-up, a journey of China’s integration into the global community that began 40 years ago.

Albrow’s book argues that building a community of shared future for humankind, a concept first proposed by President Xi Jinping at the United Nations Office in Geneva last year, is a promising solution to help different countries tackle multilateral problems.

In particular, it examines how the China-led Belt and Road initiative is crucial to implementing this vision. Proposed by Xi in 2013, the initiative seeks to grow connectivity between Asia and Europe through infrastructure investment. In this process, it accelerates international engagement in trade, investment, communication, cultural understanding and sharing.

The concept of building a community of shared future for humankind advocates an open and collaborative spirit when addressing shared global challenges, marking a sharp distinction from the Cold War mentality of power rivalries.

“Global is a word that came to prominence early in my career as a way of referring to worldwide communication and interconnectedness. Since then, it has taken on a whole cart of meanings: world dominance, erosion of national boundaries, denial of individuality … all diminishing that original shared human future,” Albrow said at his book launch.

“The weaponization of the term has given it an almost mythical status. China has kept cool and adopted its own transnational development program, the Belt and Road initiative, which promotes infrastructure investment as a key driver for global economy.”

Albrow, a former professor emeritus at the University of Wales, has had a distinguished career in sociology spanning over 50 years. His pioneering 1996 book The Global Age, written at a time when globalization was quite new, won the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences.

His new 218-page book is written in a scholarly tone, densely rooted in academic theories. Perhaps not the best bedtime reading material, it serves the important purpose of placing a China-led globalization approach within the realm of serious academia development. It is a groundbreaking theoretical contribution with major academic significance and builds a strong foundation for future social scientists’ research and studies.

Albrow argues that the Belt and Road Initiative — though only a recent attempt to show how China as a new player in the world can help to heal its divisions —has at its foundation Xi’s thinking on the governance of China. And Xi’s thoughts demonstrate that the initiative will serve as a means to promote global peace and cooperation, rather than strengthen power rivalries.

Globalization is a concept that has gained particular prominence through the internationalization of US culture in the 20th century: Military alliances such as NATO; the dollar as the world reserve currency; American-owned global corporations; client states, particularly in Latin America and the Middle East. All have contributed to a singular global pre-eminence, reaching its culminating point in the 1990s.

However, this process has also left the US homeland with a sense of loss of control over what it has created, which led to the current surge in protectionist measures.

Albrow feels hindrances to the US-centric globalization model will not worry China, because the US and China have arrived at superpower status in different ways. He writes, “China’s development has not followed in the wake of military success, and the cessation of armed conflict in the Korean Peninsula was based in mutual recognition that a victory would come at unacceptable cost for both sides.”

He explains further that Xi’s formula for global governance invokes more than just understanding others. It also depends on exchange and cooperation.

Here, Albrow references Xi Jinping: The Governance of China to explain the thoughts of the Chinese leader, China’s development and its international engagement. As a collection of Xi’s speeches, conversations, instructions and letters, the book has found a wide global audience. The first volume was published in 2014 and is now available in 24 languages. The second volume was published in nine languages during the London Book Fair, just one day after the publication of Albrow’s book.

Albrow holds Xi’s book in high regard. He has long urged Western leaders to pay close attention to it, arguing that every speech in the book concerns not just national and international public policy, but also the everyday lives of ordinary citizens.

“It should be read by everyone concerned about the global future of our species,” he said at the launch ceremony for the second volume of Xi’s book, which was attended by 300 politicians, academics, and business and publishing industry leaders from 14 countries.

Albrow’s work is endorsed by leading scholars, who say he has captured China’s unique international leadership role today.

“Albrow does a remarkable job of shedding light on the pivotal role that China is likely to have in shaping (globalization),” said Anthony Giddens, former director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. “As the US pulls back from its former global role, China not only can but must assume a pivotal position in shaping world society for the better.”

Olaf Corry, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, added: “China is becoming a global nation, and this book explains how. It is unique in providing a globalist view of how China understands its new role and how its leadership is already fundamentally reshaping the architecture of the world in the 21st century.”

The writer is a China Daily reporter based in London. cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com

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