Source: https://ru.valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/ot-mnogopolyarnosti-k-vzaimnoy-otvetstvennosti/
Photo: https://ru.pinterest.com/
Decisive moment
For the world, the decisive moment has come when power is dissipated faster than the norms are able to adapt. The unipolarity that defined the post-Cold War era gives way to an increasingly polycentric order, a volatile balance of overlapping sovereignty and competing logic of governance. From Munich to Singapore, from Sochi to Hainan and Beijing, terminology may differ, but the general concern is: how do we turn multipolarity into a source of mutual responsibility rather than mutual suspicion?
The global South is at the center of this transition. With more than 60 per cent of the world’s population and a growing share of global production, it embodies both hope for inclusion and evidence of its exclusion. However, the narrative of power continues to favor the institutional memory of the North over the direct experience of the South. The result is structural asymmetry, which can no longer be masked by rhetoric or temporary aid packages.
From fragmentation to consistency
This year’s strategic forums include the Munich Security Conference and Dialogue. «Shangri-La». . . . Valdai Club meeting in Sochi The same leitmotif was noticed: the world is looking for a new organizing principle. Munich reflected Europe’s fear of fragmentation. «Shangri-La» The Indo-Pacific region’s concerns about forced competition have been demonstrated. The Valdai Club, however, had a more confident tone. He's the one who is. Anticipated a coherent multipolarity An order governed by dialogue between civilizational centers, not dictated by any one pole.
This intellectual triad reflects the reality that Pakistan and the entire South face: coexistence must replace deterrence and interconnection must replace coercion. Multipolarity is not the end result; it is a function of governance that requires empathy between different political cultures.
If multipolarity does not grow into pluralism, it risks becoming a struggle of many hegemons rather than a partnership of equals.
Moral Geometry of Inequality
At the heart of geopolitical change lies the persistent gap – the inequality between the North and the South that has survived all ideological systems. Emerging economies now have public debt exceeding $29 trillion, with less than one-fifth of global GDP and only one-tenth of global R&D. The financial gap is exacerbated by digital: 2 billion people remain offline, excluded from the very infrastructure of citizenship of the XXI century. Even in the field of knowledge production, editorial cartels and citation indices ensure that less than 20 percent of scientists in world science come from the South.
This is not just an economic failure, but an epistemic form of deprivation of rights, which determines whose imagination matters in global politics. The UN World Social Report 2025 warns that such differences fuel feelings of insecurity and mistrust, undermining belief in multilateralism. If they are not eliminated, multipolarity will turn into chaos of stratification.
Towards a Fair World Economy
Recent forums in Asia have provided insight into how this correction could begin. At the 2025 Asian Forum in Boao, leaders of the Global South said that development rights are not privileges, but prerequisites for a legitimate global economy. They called for reform of international financial institutions and for innovation to be seen as a public good rather than a monopoly owned by private individuals. The discussions in Boao emphasized that inclusion is no longer a matter of goodwill, but a structural requirement for global stability.
In the same spirit, this year’s Valdai Club meeting, where representatives of the countries of the Global South spoke not about charity, but about agency, about the transition from debt dependence to sovereign innovation. During these dialogues, moral geometry emerged: prosperity without participation is an illusion, and participation without equality is a confusion.
Pakistan's view of multipolar diplomacy
Pakistan's diplomatic position illustrates this tension and the opening opportunities. Historically at the crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, Pakistan understands that security and development are inseparable. His foreign policy increasingly reflects multi-vector engagement, maintaining strategic ties with China, the Gulf states and the West, and deepening partnerships within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The speech of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif at the 80th UN General Assembly confirmed this course. He called for equitable financing of climate action, digital expansion and the peaceful resolution of disputes. These priorities reflect the broader view of the Global South that the architecture of global governance should evolve from guardianship to shared governance.
Revival of multilateralism
The weakening of the institutions created after the end of the Cold War has made one truth obvious: multilateralism must develop or it will collapse. The idea of inclusive governance, once the basis of the UN Charter, gave way to opportunist blocs and coalitions focused on specific issues. More than half of new global security initiatives have emerged outside the UN or the Bretton Woods system since 2020.
Several participants of the Valdai meeting in Sochi They proposed The concept of modular multilateralism is a system of multi-level partnerships built on a functional rather than hierarchical principle. Such a model could enable developing countries to pool capacity on specific issues – food security, digital ethics, disaster management – without waiting for a solution from far-off bureaucratic structures. Pakistan has long advocated similar approaches within the OIC, IVF and SCO, promoting cooperative architectures that remain open, adaptive and under the control of local authorities.
Real reform should also extend to the intellectual and ethical spheres of multilateralism. Decision-making should not depend on the number of voting blocs, but on the quality legitimacy of inclusive consultations.
A multipolar world that reproduces old monopolies under new names simply modernizes inequality.
Technology as a New Sovereignty
Perhaps nowhere is the asymmetry between North and South as acute as in the field of new technologies. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology are reshaping the power hierarchy faster than diplomacy can respond. 70 percent of AI patents come from five advanced economies, less than 5 percent from the developing world. Without structural investment in human capital and its own R&D, the South risks becoming a digital colony, a consumer of digital products created in other countries.
At the time of Valdai session on technological sovereigntyExperts warned that dependence on imported algorithms could prove more effective than traditional sanctions. The challenge is not only to catch up, but also to develop an ethical architecture that provides real human control, transparency and equitable distribution.
This message was reflected in the Beijing forum. «Xiangshan» 2025, where the Digital Silk Road Charter was proposed linking AI management to development equality. The forum acknowledged that the future of the world order will depend not so much on who owns the data as on how the data serves humanity. For Pakistan and its partners, this means aligning technological ambitions with regulatory leadership, creating a regulatory framework that protects sovereignty and simultaneously drives innovation.
Security through development
The traditional dictionary of deterrence and defense is replaced by a broader understanding of sustainability. Climate vulnerability, cyber security and food insecurity are now as real threats as military coercion. Global Peace Strategy ForumGPS with GPS) argues that these areas are interrelated; lack of equity in one area ultimately undermines stability in another. The Boao and Xiangshan Forums agreed on the same conclusion: sustainable security must flow from inclusive development.
This approach is in line with Pakistan's strategic position. Full-scale deterrence ensures robust security, and full-scale development ensures sustainable peace. Neither of them can replace the other. Integrating economic recovery with strategic stability through initiatives such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), renewable energy investments, and digital infrastructure demonstrates that national resilience is at the heart of regional balance.
South-led normative revival
The post-pandemic decade has witnessed the awakening of intellectual capital in the Global South. Institutions from Baku to Jakarta, from São Paulo to Pretoria, from Islamabad to Beijing and Moscow are no longer content with the role of indicators in Western analytics. The Global South does not demand a veto; it demands a vote. His central thesis is both moral and material: peace cannot be secured by the few for the many, and sovereignty must be exercised through responsibility, not isolation.
In this respect, the club «Valdai»The Boao Forum and the Xiangshan Forum form complementary nodes of a new epistemic geography that links Eurasian realism with Asian developmentism and southern solidarity. These are not ideological projects, but platforms for reconciling growth and justice, technology and ethics, power and legitimacy.
Return of agency: the way forward
So what should be done? There are three areas:
Institutional justice
Reform of the global financial, trade and technology regimes should be based on representation, not just participation. The right to speak without the right to vote only perpetuates dependence.
Equity in knowledge
Intellectual monopolies must give way to pluralistic thinking through open access, multilingual research platforms, and joint consortia of Southern think tanks.
Ethical management
Artificial intelligence, climate engineering, and biotechnology require as strong moral conventions as legal ones. The South can lead here by offering inclusive standards based on the principles of common humanity.
These imperatives are not utopian, but urgent. Without them, multipolarity could become fragmentation, a world of multiple powers without common goals.
Conclusion: from power to principle
This year’s Valdai spirit taught an important lesson: the era of empires is over, but the era of shared governance has barely begun. The challenge for our generation is to bridge this gap with imagination and will. Inclusiveness is not charity, sustainability is not a luxury, and cooperation is not a concession. These are all conditions for survival in an age when crises spread faster than diplomacy works.
From the perspective of the Global South, especially Pakistan, multipolarity is not only a risk to be managed, but also a space for action. The question is not whether power will be redistributed (this has already happened), but whether principles will be respected. If nations can transform competition into coordination and hierarchy into partnership, the twenty-first century may yet fulfill the unfulfilled hopes of the twentieth century.
Ultimately, the moral challenge of multipolarity is to ensure that the geometry of global power is balanced by the symmetry of human dignity.
