Amid rising geopolitical tensions, China says multilateralism is the only viable path forward.

The message was delivered at the Munich Security Conference, where foreign leaders, economists, and policy experts discussed China’s role in global trade, economic growth, and governance.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, reiterated China’s role as a stabilizing force.

CGTN’s Zhao Yunfei reports on why China has become a key focus in Munich.

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA Director-General, World Trade Organization “China has benefited from the multilateral system. It just got out of special and differential treatment, after many years of resistance.”

GAVIN NEWSOM California Governor “We know where the market’s going. China gets it. Look at their GDP growth last year.”

GRAHAM ALLISON Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard University “I would say the US has hyped the Chinese expansion to the maximum extent possible, and it seems to be very normal.”

Discussions at the Munich Security Conference have placed a spotlight on China with the hope that China will bring new perspectives to global governance.

WANG YI Chinese Foreign Minister “Over the past year, the international landscape was marked by growing transformation and turbulence, and the law of the jungle and unilateralism went rampant. Humanity has come to a new crossroads for the cause of peace and development.”

ZHAO YUNFEI CGTN Reporter “Against the backdrop of mounting global tensions and growing strategic anxiety, Wang Yi’s speech once again sent a clear message: China sees itself as a source of certainty in an increasingly uncertain world.”

Wang has called for multilateralism, as opposed to unilateralism.

WANG YI Chinese Foreign Minister “China and Europe should join hands to practice multilateralism, uphold the authority of the United Nations, oppose unilateral bullying, safeguard free trade, and oppose bloc confrontation.”

Amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis and renewed US-driven tensions over Greenland, Europe has increasingly turned to China for partnerships.

WANG YIWEI Director, Center for European Union Studies, Renmin University of China “The Europeans should work together with China to get more independence, either in traditional or in a digital way. But they’re not just trusting China in the name of the dispute of ideology, but actually the US is pressuring Europeans to rely on the US. So that’s the reason, either in Davos and Munich, the US always puts China as another threat after Russia.”

The concerns are shadowed by camp confrontation.

MATTHEW WHITAKER US Ambassador to NATO “We have certainly an ascendant China that is going to be a strategic competitor of the United States for the next century and how we respond to that is most likely to define where we end up as a country.”

But when it comes to China-US ties, dialogue is better than confrontation, cooperation is better than conflict, and win-win is better than zero-sum, that’s what Wang Yi told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Some European countries have already taken a pragmatic approach.

Since the beginning of 2026, leaders of Ireland, Finland, and the UK paid visits to China.

ZHAO YUNFEI CGTN Reporter “The growing number of visits by Western leaders to China has created new business opportunities and helped stabilize global supply chains. It also reflects a shifting mindset – one in which traditional alliances with the US are no longer viewed as entirely reliable.”

This year’s Munich Security Report wrote: Aligning with US interests at the expense of relations with China may become an even less attractive prospect for Asia-Pacific countries, reflecting a broader dynamic.

Voice of David McWilliams Irish Economist “The Chinese have no interest in overseas expansion. China will remain on the sidelines of all these scraps. Just thinking, what does this do to advance the cause of internal stability? And that is the reason that most of us, either Americans or Europeans, who are the children and grandchildren of imperial projects and imperial mindsets of going abroad to acquire status. That’s why we can’t get them, because they’re not playing the same game.”

Against the backdrop of hegemony, China seeks mutual growth.

WANG HUIYAO President, Center of China and Globalization “China’s economy is doing well, and China’s new Five-Year Plan is doing well. China is in dialogue with every party. There’s high hope that China can be a new big anchor to stabilize the world, at least to complement the fall of this multilateral system, and a strong defender of the UN system.”

ZHAO YUNFEI CGTN Reporter “Just ahead of Wang Yi’s trip to Europe, China’s top diplomat also launched the APEC China Year in the southern city of Guangzhou – reaffirming commitments not only to Asia-Pacific economies, but to the wider world, that China will continue to uphold free trade and multilateralism.”

China was the second-largest contributor to the UN’s budget last year.

Adding to a sharp rise in China’s contributions, the rate surged from less than 1 percent in 2000 to over 20 percent in 2025.

WERNER ZUSE Founding Member, International Schiller Institute “The BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which are economic unions and not military ones. And their aim is develop the world for the common aims of mankind. Europe can only survive when we collaborate with the BRICS and especially China in building up the Third World.”

Fairness, rules, no power politics… China has once again reassured its commitment to an equal, orderly multipolar world on the international stage.