Doha, Qatar: As the global liberal order faces challenges in the form of shifting power and ongoing international conflicts, Doha Debates’ town hall at Qatar National Convention Centre on December 6 posed a vital question to a panel of experts and students: What ideas and values are essential to building a better world?

Titled “Global order: Which principles should shape our future?”, the town hall examined the competing values that underpin our societies and asked which of them will help us create a more equitable, peaceful world.

Hosted by journalist Femi Oke and held in partnership with Doha Forum, the lively and wide-ranging conversation covered a number of critical issues, including the future of liberalism and American foreign policy, essential human rights, the capabilities of the nation state and the influence of BRICS on the global order.

The expert panel of speakers featured Victor Gao, vice president of the Center for China and Globalization; Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s former foreign minister; and Vali Nasr, a leading scholar of international affairs. An onstage audience of students and recent graduates from campuses across Doha asked questions of the panel and contributed their own perspectives to the conversation.

Gao opened by advocating for China’s development-first model: “In China, we have a saying: If you want to be rich, build a road,” he said. “I think the choice is very clear. Let’s really put a focus on development, stability, peace, and always believe in development as the hard truth, the softer truth and the smart truth.”

Nasr emphasised liberalism’s contributions to the global order—including democracy, individual rights and technological and economic advancement—despite rising challenges to its dominance.

Khar, meanwhile, underscored the damage caused by selective application of any international norms. She called for a consistent and universal application of baseline values—specifically, of human rights—to restore credibility to the international order.

“I would say that if nothing else, the whole world may want to agree that the right to life is one thing which is non-negotiable. I think what you’re seeing play out in the world is that right to life itself is now becoming negotiable.”

Questions from the onstage audience of students and recent graduates often challenged the panellists’ arguments. Lina Darwish, a graduate of QF’s partner university, Georgetown University in Qatar, questioned the notion that liberalism came from the West.. “How can I trust anything that came out of the West when there is an active genocide that is being funded by the West in Palestine, and how can I not trust that I am next?,” she said.

Other students questioned Gao’s assertion of China’s non-interventionist stance, citing the country’s policies on Uyghur Muslims and its rising power in Africa.

“Wouldn’t you say China’s presence all over Africa is an exercise of some sort of power, a soft power of sorts, and does that not contradict with the foreign policy of China?” asked Afomia Seyoum, a student at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, another QF partner university.

Despite these exchanges, at the close of the debate, the panellists expressed gratitude to the onstage audience of young leaders, encouraging them to continue to think independently and critically about the future they would like to see for themselves.