China’s global standing is weakening in 2025, with its high-profile international initiatives delivering little beyond headlines. The country’s three flagship campaigns, the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI), and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), are struggling to gain meaningful traction, while its once-touted Health Silk Road is in decline. Even BRICS, the China-led economic bloc once touted as a vehicle to remake the world order, is slowing its expansion and has had little to no tangible global impact.
Launched in 2021, the Global Development Initiative (GDI) was billed by Xi Jinping as a world-changing plan to create “a community of common destiny for mankind,” inviting nations to “hitch themselves to China’s development train.”
Xi envisioned Chinese standards becoming the backbone of a deeply interconnected world, positioning China as a global savior asking, “What has gone wrong with the world? What is humanity’s way forward?”
In reality, the GDI’s results have been minimal. China claims over 1,000 projects, with 500 completed or underway and $4 billion in funding, yet most were pandemic-related relief efforts, often involving the sale of Chinese-made vaccines rather than genuine aid.
The GDI’s momentum has faded, and most of the world has never heard of it. Like the Belt and Road Initiative before it, which produced a slew of unfinished, over-budget projects that left many developing nations heavily indebted to China, the GDI has struggled to deliver on its grand promises.
The Global Security Initiative (GSI), launched in 2022, has produced little of substance. While China claims more than 80 countries “express appreciation,” formal endorsements are scarce. Within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, support remains incomplete, and twelve of the twenty-eight members of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia have offered no formal backing.
In practice, the GSI operates entirely through preexisting China-led forums such as the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum, the Middle East Security Forum, the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, the Boao Forum, and the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum. No new institutions have been created, and the only military exercises linked to it are the long-running SCO “Peace Mission” drills, which predate the initiative.
China has announced plans to provide 1,700 security governance training opportunities for developing countries in 2025, but these are classroom programs, not joint exercises or operational cooperation. While Beijing has signed vague memorandums of understanding with some Asian and African states, there are no formal defense or security treaties under the GSI. The much-discussed security pact with the Solomon Islands, often cited by Chinese officials, predates the initiative and is not formally part of it.
In short, the GSI lacks a membership list, binding agreements, or measurable outcomes, making it a framework in name only.
Launched in 2023, the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) is largely symbolic, with almost no measurable outcomes. Western analysts view it as an ideological effort to replace “universal values” with absolute sovereignty and “traditional values.” While China claims the initiative has been “welcomed” by some Global South countries, there is no formal membership list or binding commitments, only occasional statements of support, such as Papua New Guinea saying it “welcomes and supports” the GCI.
Concrete projects are virtually nonexistent. The only notable proposal to date is a “Global Research Program for Inter-Civilization Exchanges and Mutual Learning” announced in July 2025, which promises a worldwide academic network, annual dialogue platform, and global fund, all still on paper. Other cited activities include cultural festivals, heritage celebrations, and “people-to-people exchanges” that would have occurred regardless of the GCI.
No new institutions have been created. The initiative operates entirely through existing Chinese-led cultural and diplomatic forums, and the closest example of institutionalization, the participation of Pakistan in the International Organization for Mediation, is unrelated to the GCI’s creation.
Recent developments amount to little more than conferences, academic discussions, and cultural events rebranded under the GCI banner. The most visible achievement has been the June 10, 2025 designation of a “United Nations International Day for Dialogue Among Civilizations,” which, like the rest of the initiative, remains purely symbolic.
Support for China’s BRICS grouping is waning in 2025, with both internal divisions and declining real-world activity undermining its image as an alternative to Western-led economic institutions. While headline statistics claim BRICS represents 46 percent of the world’s population and 41 percent of global GDP, these figures are misleading.
China accounts for most of BRICS’s GDP share, and India contributes the largest share of its population. These combined figures say little about the bloc’s actual economic or geopolitical power. BRICS has no mutual defense pact, is not a trade bloc, and operates only one institution, the New Development Bank (NDB). There is little genuine economic integration or meaningful joint activity to support the headline numbers.
The NDB, established in 2014 as BRICS’s flagship institution, underscores the bloc’s limitations. Despite a substantial paid-in capital base, its lending portfolio remains small, and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement continues to rely heavily on IMF decision-making.
In over a decade, the bank has approved just 96 projects worth $32.8 billion, a negligible sum compared to the size of China’s or India’s economies. Its March 2022 decision to halt loans to Russia exposed political fractures within the group, and the bank remains largely U.S. dollar-denominated, highlighting BRICS’s inability to de-dollarize.
Expansion has also stalled. In 2025, Indonesia was the only new full member, and the summit in Rio was marked by the absence of both China’s and Russia’s leaders. Analysts note that flagship BRICS ambitions, like reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar, are likely unworkable because many members cannot afford to abandon it.
Public awareness is equally weak. A 2025 poll found that 39 percent of respondents had never heard of BRICS, further undercutting its claim to global influence. Limited lending, stalled expansion, and a lack of political unity leave BRICS functioning more as a symbolic alliance than a real economic bloc, with lofty rhetoric masking stagnation and declining relevance.
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