More than 100 fencers from 17 Chinese and American universities gather at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou on August 13-14 for the 2026 China-U.S. College Fencing Invitational and People-to-People Exchange Camp. 

Global governance is not short of blueprints. What it is short of is trust. 

The institutions built after 1945 are being strained at precisely the moment they are most needed – by wars dragging on when diplomacy fails, by global risks knowing no borders, and by social media and AI allowing fake videos to be translated and spread globally in minutes, while proof and facts become a matter of allegiance. 

One year ago, on September 1, 2025, President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) in Tianjin. Its five core concepts – sovereign equality, international rule of law, multilateralism, a people-centered approach, and action orientation – have since attracted the support of nearly 160 countries and international organizations. 

Rules and mechanisms alone cannot sustain cooperation. Effective global governance depends on trust and mutual understanding between peoples, cultures, and societies. Trust cannot be manufactured overnight; it grows through dialogue, exchanges, and shared experiences. People-to-people exchanges therefore serve as a vital foundation for lasting international cooperation and global governance. They connect countries beyond politics, reduce misunderstanding, and create the social confidence needed for multilateralism to work in practice. 

The following stories explore this living fabric. Some examine the GGI’s first-year footprint not just in high-level declarations, but in ground-level encounters where seeds of trust take root. Others revisit historical traditions of exchange – from the Silk Road to philosophical dialogues across civilizations – to see how ancient wisdom can illuminate a shared future.  Different perspectives, one conviction: that a more just and reasonable global governance system must be woven, face to face and heart to heart.