Three Rings: Building a New International System in the Face of Western Decoupling by Cheng Yawen

"China and developing countries need to break the current core-periphery world order."

Dear Everyone,

I have long been wanting to share the following piece by Cheng Yawen (程亚文) entitled “Building the ‘New Three Rings’: China's Option in the Face of a Potential Complete Decoupling” and thought it would be fitting to do so during the visit to China of one of the Global South’s main representatives – Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Cheng’s article was published last summer by the respected Beijing Cultural Review (文化纵横, hereafter BCR) and reposted again online following the China-brokered Saudi-Iran deal last month. As will be made evident later, this was no coincidence.

Like Cheng, Yang Ping (杨平), BCR’s editor-in-chief and director of the Longway Foundation (修远基金会), has been calling on his country to build a “new type of international system” in response to China’s perceived alienation from today’s US-led international order. Both Yang and Cheng want their country to revise their current international strategy by refocusing their diplomatic efforts away from …