The Nations of the West Must Cooperate with the New World Economic Order!

Sept. 9—The Schiller Institute released the following statement on Sept. 5, 2025 for immediate circulation internationally. It was written as a rallying call during this period of change and tumult, and individuals are encouraged to endorse it.

At the summit of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) in Tianjin—representing around 42 percent of the world’s population—a new world order has emerged, independent of the West, founded on the principles of sovereignty, non-interference, mutually-beneficial economic cooperation, and peaceful collaboration. It is an event of global historical significance that China and India—the two most populous nations, already representing 35 percent of the world’s population—have now begun to cooperate closely with each other and with Russia. The countries gathered at the SCO, along with the various interconnected organizations such as the BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), ASEAN, CELAC, and the African Union (AU), collectively represent 85 percent of humanity.

The emergence of this new world order is a response to the collective West’s attempt, after the end of the Cold War, to establish a unipolar world under Anglo-American dominance—marked by endless interventionist wars, sanctions, and regime-change efforts—which has ultimately backfired completely. The nations of the Global Majority are now overcoming an era of 500 years of colonialism and asserting their right to independent economic development. This is made possible above all by China’s unprecedented rise, which offers countries of the Global South a model and the cooperation that the West denied them for centuries.

Thus, the world has reached an absolute turning point. We can either continue the geopolitical confrontation against Russia and China, risking a third—and this time final—world war, or we can choose to cooperate with this emerging new economic system. President Xi Jinping has proposed the vision of a “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind,” which he emphasized in his Sept. 3 speech commemorating the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat: “Humanity will either sink together, or rise together!”

It is in the fundamental self-interest of the nations of the Collective West—no longer truly united—to cooperate with the states of the Global Majority and to jointly address the great challenges facing humankind: overcoming poverty and underdevelopment, ensuring lasting world peace, and securing the right of every person on this planet to fulfill their potential.

For the realization of a shared community for the future of humanity!