China’s Challenge to the UN and Global Order

china is uniquely positioned to step into the breach left by the us. But its focus is not without inherent challenges.

After decades of economic growth have catapulted China onto the world stage, Beijing has an increasing interest in having a say in changes to a global order that the United States has led since the end of the Second World War.

With the US under President Donald Trump pulling away from past commitments to the existing world order, China is uniquely positioned to step into the breach. But China’s focus on the United Nations as a vehicle to shape a new global order is not without inherent challenges, writes Rosemary Foot.

WE MIGHT NOT AGREE easily on the meaning of the term “global order,” but a key component includes the degree to which there is acceptance of collective arrangements for solving or managing the world’s problems. this is important because, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, the chinese government has decided to pursue a more active role in global governance. As Xi has put it in his various writings and speeches, changes in the balance of power have prompted china to take on new global responsibilities. In a more ambitious formulation, presented in 2018 at an official domestic conference on foreign affairs, Xi urged that china “take an active part in leading the reform of the global governance system.” the chinese leadership believes that china has a good story to tell, represents a politico-economic model of interest to developing countries and should be confident enough to offer “chinese wisdom and a chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.” this contrasts markedly with Beijing’s view of the current Western-led governance system, which china claims has “malfunctioned” and is “beyond redemption.”

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Among the many global governance mechanisms that exist in world politics, the united Nations holds a central position. the un also holds a special place for china. chinese official statements have regularly described the un as the “most universal, representative, authoritative inter-governmental international organization” and the multilateral body best placed to deal collectively with various global threats and challenges.2 Xi has claimed a special status for china as the first country to sign the un charter,

failing to note that it was the Nationalist Government of china at that time. He has said that as a permanent member of the un security council, china not only has special responsibilities for the maintenance of world order, but also now has the capabilities to fulfil those responsibilities.

In a landmark speech to the un General Assembly in september 2015, Xi put significant amounts of meat on the bones of that idea. He announced, among other things, a 10-year, us$1 billion china-un Peace and development trust fund; that china would join the new un Peacekeeping capability Readiness system; and to that end would establish a chinese peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops. Beijing also offered a us$100 million grant to the African union over five years to support the establishment of the African standby force and the African capacity for Immediate Response to crisis unit.

Even before these additional commitments, for several years china had been providing more peacekeeping troops than the four other permanent security council members put together. from late 2012, these included combat forces, though Beijing prefers to call them guard teams. from 2016, it became the second-largest contributor to the un’s peacekeeping budget, and Beijing now stands as the second-largest contributor to the overall un budget, with the us in both cases still number one. chinese nationals currently hold three high-level posts in the un secretariat (special Envoy to the Great lakes Region, continuing head of the department of Economic and social Affairs and Assistant secretary-general in the Bureau of Policy and Program support within the un development Program). chinese nationals hold four executive positions in un specialized agencies (the International civil Aviation Organization, the Industrial development Organization, the International telecommunications union and the food and Agricultural Organization.)

the un in the Post-cold war Era

china’s more active engagement with the un is surprising in some respects because it comes at a time when the body has taken on responsibilities that challenge Beijing’s state-centric Westphalian vision of world order. from the start of the post-cold War period, the un security council appeared to move into a post-westphalian era and to privilege the un’s role in providing human protection: that is, it accepted a broadening of the concept of security, and acknowledged that internal breakdowns of a state’s security as well as large-scale violence directed at individuals pose potential challenges to international peace and security.

the security council has since mandated more complex peace operations involving a range of tasks that can be viewed as domestically intrusive. It has vowed that the un has a core obligation to protect civilians caught up in armed conflict, and especially so for women and children, who suffer particularly egregious forms of abuse in wartime. Organizational and budgetary transformations have come on the heels of these conceptual changes including the establishment within the un secretariat of an Office for the co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the creation of the Office of the un High commissioner for Human Rights. In 2005, a World summit of Heads of state and Government agreed to endorse a “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) populations from war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, together with their incitement. In september 1999, then un secretary-general Kofi Annan interpreted the scope of the un charter to mean that members are “more than ever conscious that its aim is to protect individual human beings, not to protect those who abuse them.” Annan regularly

3 reminded un member states that the causes of peace and security, development and human