Separating Intervention from Regime Change: China's Diplomatic Innovations at the UN Security Council Regarding the Syria Crisis

Abstract

China's response to the recent Syria crisis at the UN Security Council represents a crucial case in China's approach to intervention in that it breaks from China's recent practice of becoming more permissive regarding intervention. Instead, China actively worked to ensure that a firm line was drawn to separate intervention from foreign-imposed regime change. It did so by employing three diplomatic innovations: exercising multiple, successive vetoes; expanding discourse to delegitimize intervention as “regime change” by Western powers; and engaging in norm-shaping of the international community's “responsibility to protect” post-intervention. Together, these three innovations highlight China's desire to firmly separate the intervention norm from that of regime change. Using a variety of primary sources, the article also draws insights from interviews with foreign policy elites in Beijing, New York and New Delhi.

Rhetorical adaptation, normative resistance and international order-making: China’s advancement of the responsibility to protect

“…However, although it may still be too early to see the effects of rhetorical entrapment as a means to socialization, initial evidence implies that such an outcome remains unlikely. The use of Resolutions 1970 and 1973 to justify regime change has only strengthened China’s resoluteness to reduce attempts for pillar three actions as a ‘Trojan horse’ to produce these outcomes (Fung, 2018).…”

“…The responsibility to protect discussions at the UN Security Council now reflect a more cautious approach to the use of the norm since Libya, partly because of the heightened Chinese perception of the potential for the responsibility to protect to birth regime change (Fung, 2018). Textual analysis of the dozens of resolutions since 2011 invoking the responsibility to protect show a dominant trend in reiterating a state’s responsibility to protect, as opposed to invoking the responsibility to protect against state consent (Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 2018).…”

“…China is popularly viewed as one of the key proponents of a much more traditional interpretation of state sovereignty. While the literature acknowledges China’s nuanced application of traditional sovereignty specifically in regards to humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping and state-building, for example, there is agreement that China tolerates, but does not advocate, departures from traditional sovereignty, with its emphasis on territoriality and state control (Carlson, 2004, 2005; Fung, 2018, 2019; Wuthnow et al, 2012). It is unsurprising, then, that China once opposed the emerging responsibility to protect norm (Gill and Reilly, 2000).…”

Power and Restraint in China's Rise by Chin‐HaoHuang, New York, NY, Columbia University Press, 2022, xviii + 216 pp.

“…Finally, third, China is largely limited to being an “initiator” of conflict and a taker of external norms. Influence is unidirectional; however, recent studies also show how China's adaptations to UN peacekeeping also involve its own norm‐shaping contributions in its process of adaptation (see Alden and Large 2015; Fung 2018).…”

Preventing and Responding to Atrocity Crimes: China, Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect

“…Certainly, the fact that Resolutions 1970 and 1973 led to the overthrow of Gadhafi made Beijing even more mindful of the potential misuse of R2P rhetoric, strengthening its (pre-existing) inclination to favor assistance over intervention. During the Syrian crisis, this was clearly reflected in China's firm condemnation of regime change strategies,128 which can be seen as an attempt to recalibrate the relationship between sovereignty and intervention in the context of pillar 3 action 129. China's staunch defense of Syrian sovereignty has also been linked to the fact that the Assad government remained largely intact 130.…”