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R2P and Norm Localization: China’s Influence on the Development of R2P

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Rethinking the Responsibility to Protect

Part of the book series: Contributions to International Relations ((CIR))

Abstract

This chapter examines how the People’s Republic of China successfully influenced the development of the R2P norm from 2001 to 2005, based on its national understanding of state sovereignty. It analyzes speeches and statements by the Chinese delegation to the United Nations and official Chinese foreign policy papers. China “localized” and reconstructed the R2P concept drawing on local ideas and traditions and then advanced a respective understanding at the transnational level. China succeeded in distancing itself from the original draft of the “norm entrepreneurs” and portrayed R2P as a Western attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states. China weakened the substantial value of the norm but strengthened the referential value for countries in the Global South who expressed similar concerns about R2P.

This chapter was firstly published in German (Polle in Hansel & Reichwein 2020).

The author thanks Alexander Reichwein, Mischa Hansel, Michael Staack, Antje Wiener, and Pinar Ulumaskan for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although this study focuses on the period between the ICISS report (2001) and the WSOD (2005), Chinese statements in the following years also comprise their main points of criticism. Since this illustrates the continuity and seriousness of China's criticism, I draw on them as additional support to my argument.

  2. 2.

    An example for this may be March and Olsen’s argument that “democratic norms are contagious” (March & Olsen, 1998: 962). Since they are highly attractive, they would spread more or less automatically when democracies and countries without a democratic tradition are in contact with each other (ibid.). Yet, keeping in mind the countless efforts of countries with “secure democratic tradition”, who are however not further specified, to enhance democracy in (post-)conflict countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan the “contagious” quality of democratic norms seems less persuasive.

  3. 3.

    Since the norm recipients hold an even more active role in the development of norms, I shall henceforth refer to them as “norm-shapers”.

  4. 4.

    My analysis builds on the work by Prantl and Nakano (2011), who focused on how China and Japan implemented R2P. However, I take a more detailed look at the Chinese case, by analyzing the discursive contributions by China within the UN context. While the authors furthermore sought to use R2P for illustrating the gradual Chinese integration into the Western liberal order, facilitated by “social influence” (Prantl and Nakano: 11f), this inquiry is rather interested in Chinas contestation of R2P.

  5. 5.

    Art. 2.1 “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members”. Art. 2.7 “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII” (Charter of the United Nations, https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml, last accessed April 30, 2021).

  6. 6.

    For a long time, the territorial aspect has been the crucial element for the recognition of statehood, as a status legitimized by international law (Carlson 2005; Crawford, 2012).

  7. 7.

    It should be noted that there were two Commission members from North Africa, from Egypt and Algeria. Yet, from southern Africa only Dr. Mamphela Ramphele, Managing Director of The World Bank Group and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town was involved. His Excellency Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand was the only Commission member from the Asian region (ICISS, 2001a: 82).

  8. 8.

    “China was subject to aggression and humiliation by foreign powers for quite a long time. We in China are deeply aware of the arduous struggle for peace” (Wang, 2005b).

  9. 9.

    For a comprehensive overview of the Opium Wars see Spence (1990).

  10. 10.

    There are also IR scholars who see similarities between the R2P concept and the shared spheres of control during the colonial era. Both would describe two types of government authority: Sovereignty and citizenship on the one hand and trusteeship and guardianship on the other hand (Mamdani, 2009: 277).

  11. 11.

    In the policy area of development aid China similarly challenged the established Western norms and a mobilized other developing countries. In recent years, China has increasingly propagated the so-called “China Model” or “Beijing Consensus” as an alternative to the traditional Western model (the “Washington Consensus”). The former builds on the values of economic development, social stability, and harmony (Chen, 2009). It would not only allow developing countries to improve their material situation in a self-determined—sovereign—way, but also to emancipate themselves from Western patronage.

  12. 12.

    Position Paper of the People's Republic of China at the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly 17 September 2008.

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  1. University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Johanna Polle

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  1. Department of Political Science, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Alexander Reichwein

  2. Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH), University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Mischa Hansel

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Polle, J. (2023). R2P and Norm Localization: China’s Influence on the Development of R2P. In: Reichwein, A., Hansel, M. (eds) Rethinking the Responsibility to Protect. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27412-1_6

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