Xi Jinping champions the cause of Global South

Over the years, China, under Xi's leadership, has taken concrete steps to advocate for developing countries, help Global South countries enhance their representation and voice in international governance, and promote a more just and equitable international order.

At the 2022 G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, China took the lead in supporting the African Union (AU)'s membership in the G20. In their meeting on the sidelines of the summit, then Senegalese President Macky Sall, who was also the AU chairperson that year, thanked Xi for being the first to publicly support the AU's G20 membership.

The global leadership today remains lopsided, and rebalancing this skewed system is a shared imperative for both the Global North and South, said Paolo Magri, managing director and chair of the advisory board of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, a think tank.

"Global South countries marching together toward modernization is monumental in world history and unprecedented in human civilization," Xi said at the "BRICS Plus" Dialogue in Kazan, Russia, last year, while acknowledging that "the road to prosperity for the Global South will not be straight."

"No matter how the international landscape evolves, we in China will always keep the Global South in our heart, and maintain our roots in the Global South," Xi pledged.