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Rosemary Foot is an emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, as well as a senior research fellow in the department of politics and international relations. Her research is focused on security and human rights issues, with particular regard to the Asia-Pacific region. In her latest book, China, the UN and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, Image, she analyzes China’s approach to and relationship with the United Nations.

Q: The 50th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China joining the United Nations is coming up soon. Why has membership of the UN been so important to recent Chinese leaders?

A: UN membership has been important right from the beginning of the People’s Republic of China, and for China itself, even when it was under the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai Shek. To be a signatory to the UN Charter in 1945, and to be the first country to sign, was very important for the Guomindang government, because it saw it as a kind of recognition of its war effort. China entered World War Two, fighting the Japanese, in 1937, much earlier than other Allied powers. And it felt that membership of the Security Council and being a signatory on the charter were important recognitions of that fact. 

Later on, UN membership became part of the tussle between the Republic of China in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. So it’s about the legitimacy that UN recognition bestows on governments. 

For China, being a member of both the UN Security Council and the General Assembly is a very important way in which the government can link with constituencies that are important to it. Security Council membership is a way of diluting the power of other state actors, and in particular of reducing the hegemonic role, as it would see it, of the United States in the global system. It is also a kind of equalizing mechanism. The five permanent members each have veto power, and that gives China two things: It gives substance to the notion that we live in a multipolar world order — China’s preferred formulation — and it also constrains U.S. power. If the United States perceives that some of its central interests are being thwarted by the Security Council, it has to go outside of it to undertake the action that it wants to take, thereby losing a degree of international approval and legitimation. And so for those sorts of reasons, the UN is important to China and has been for a very long time. 

If we focus on why China has actually taken a more active role recently, that is obviously to do with China’s greater global presence, and its growing ability to work within the UN structure. It has made a very professional set of ambassadorial appointments over the years. And it has growing material capacities which enable it to influence outcomes that are expressed through the UN and its various institutions and sub-institutions. The UN is a place where China can express its ideas, where it can try to build a positive international image. And it is also a venue where it can try to reconstitute what’s meant by a responsible, great power in world politics. 

After the PRC joined the UN in 1971 it was relatively inactive for several years. When do you date its change in attitude and willingness to act within the UN?

I think it took about a decade. During the first period from 1971 to the early 80s, China was pretty inactive: China’s UN ambassador was known as ‘Mister Looking-out-the-window’ at the time, it was just not engaged at all. It saw the UN simply as a tool of the superpowers and didn’t really think of it as having any independent authority in world politics, or having much to do with China’s security concerns. 

That began to change around about the early 1980s, in connection with the much broader change in Chinese foreign policy under Deng Xiaoping. Deng argued that as China sought to put development first, it needed a peaceful, stable international environment, and that it could contribute to that by participating in international treaties and by joining international organizations, whether state-based or not. So you see China joining a whole raft of international organizations, signing arms control treaties and so on as a result of its decision that peaceful development was the main game at that time. 

China is now the second largest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations in financial terms and the second largest contributor to the overall UN budget. Is it as simple as Beijing believing that these contributions should be reflected in increased influence over the running of the UN?

China offers more peacekeeping troops than the other four permanent members of the Security Council put together and has the largest standby peacekeeping force in the UN system. So there’s lots of indicators that it regards peacekeeping operations as very important. To some degree it believes its contributions should result in increased influence over how the UN directs its operations and its focus. 

If you look at some of Xi Jinping’s statements, so many of them reflect on the changing international balance of power in which China has emerged as the second largest economy in the world with the second largest defense budget, and that this should be reflected in a larger role in global governance for the country. That includes the UN.

Can you explain Beijing’s current approach to the UN and its role in global governance? Does China see itself as a leader of the developing world at the UN, or more as a peer of the U.S. and European nations?

It’s always a tricky one trying to position China’s identity. It does see itself as a leader of the developing world. But it also recognizes that it’s in a very special place, because among the emerging powers it is the most significant economic actor. It sees its own experience as very relevant to the developing world. But there is a sense in which it has stepped outside of the developing category because of its economic attributes, and the fact that it is now a high middle-income country.

It also sees itself as a peer of the U.S. and European nations, in part because it’s an equal member of the UN Security Council. It also sometimes expresses itself as a bridge between the Western developed countries and the developing world. Because it has this foot in the Security Council, and in the General Assembly, it sometimes talks about being able to reflect and protect developing countries’ interests, and interpret those interests for the other members of the Security Council. It sees itself in quite a variegated role, because it’s long had this twin identity as both a developing country, but also as a great power. 

[The Chinese] have been arguing that the most effective way of ensuring human protection is to have a strong state that puts the focus on economic development, and that in domestic terms is socially stable. That means, of course, that civil society has a weakened role and is governed and controlled by the state. 

There are also distinctive elements in the way that the Chinese describe the UN as being at the center of the international system, as the world’s core security institution, and as reflective of a true form of multilateralism. There’s very much a talking up of the authority and legitimacy of the United Nations. That is in part to try to dilute the power of other state actors in the system, by saying that the United Nations is the legitimating body when you’re dealing with questions of peace, security, and development. 

But it’s also the case that China has a very traditional interpretation of the United Nations and its charter that emphasizes the UN as an interstate governance body, that is there to protect the sovereignty of the state, and not so much to protect the individual and their liberty. 

In my book I argue that the UN has moved into a post-Westphalian era, with the idea of protection of human beings becoming a much more central part of its action, and a core obligation, as UN secretaries general have called it since the era of Boutros Boutros-Ghali — the idea that the human person has to be protected against abusive states and non-state actors. [Former secretary-general] Kofi Annan made his famous statement that the UN is not here to protect those who are actually abusive to individuals, but is here to protect humankind. 

This shift into a different understanding of sovereignty is something that the Chinese have been resisting quite firmly. They have been arguing that the most effective way of ensuring human protection is to have a strong state that puts the focus on economic development, and that in domestic terms is socially stable. That means, of course, that civil society has a weakened role and is governed and controlled by the state. Those are the elements that I see China promoting whenever possible within the UN setting. 

That, though, runs counter to the UN Charter, which reflects the idea that the UN deals with the three pillars of international peace and security, development and human rights. There is a tussle between the Chinese interpretation of the charter, which is very conservative and backward-looking, emphasizing the state above all, against a UN that now has a more expanded definition of what is meant by international peace and security.

Do you see China’s approach offering an alternative, positive vision of how the UN should operate? Or do you see it as a largely defensive stance, aimed at mitigating the UN’s interventionist leanings?

I think both things are going on. China is very concerned about what it sees as an intrusive agenda on the part of the UN. It does emphasize non-interference in internal affairs all the time. There has, for example, been discussion about putting recent events in Belarus on the UN Security Council agenda. But the Chinese and Russian response has been, ‘No, this is related to internal affairs, this has nothing to do with international peace and security. It’s not leading to the destabilization of Belarusian neighbors, and therefore it shouldn’t be on the agenda of the UN Security Council.’ 

There are a number of issues like that, where China has been trying to narrow the definition of what represents a threat to international peace and security. And that is partly defensive. I’ve noticed that a number of Chinese scholars have made the point that we can understand Chinese leaders’ approach, because they think about Tibet, and they think about Xinjiang. A number of interviewees in China have said, when we think about Syria, we’re thinking about Xinjiang. An argument has been made that if, for example, what Beijing refers to as Xinjiang’s separatists find a way of interesting UN members in their plight, then this internationalizes an issue which the Chinese see as predominantly a matter of internal affairs, and of national unity. So there is a defensive element in that. 

Of course China needs to work within the UN to put forward its alternative view that there is a clear division between internal and external affairs, and that we need to have a Security Council that operates with a narrow and predictable remit. There are various ways in which the Chinese try to make sure that the Security Council agenda is not — as they would put it — overloaded with topics that are beyond its competency. So they will often say, for example, that things to do with the UN’s agenda on women, peace and security should go to the UNDP, or the Commission on Women, or bodies of that kind. 

China’s position has led it to some controversial stances like opposing UN intervention in Syria. At the same time, in this century alone we’ve seen the Western powers carry out what have arguably been failed campaigns in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, potentially playing into the Chinese argument. How do you see the balance playing out at the UN?

China’s opposition to the UN intervention in Syria did result in criticism, particularly around 2012-13. The criticism came because from the very beginning, China wasn’t willing, nor was Russia, to join with others to suggest to Bashar al-Assad that there would be consequences if he continued with a violent response to the instability that was going on inside Syria. But later on as the civil war unfolded, and as it looked like, at one point, that the French, the British, the Americans were talking about some form of intervention, there was this sense that others were reflecting on what had gone on in Iraq, and Libya and so on. That wasn’t just the usual suspects, it was quite a wide body of opinion inside developed Western countries themselves, that military intervention was probably not the way forward. Then-U.S. President Obama was very wary of any thought of Libyan-style intervention. 

So these are not simply Chinese arguments — they have a much wider constituency in the global system. The Chinese approach, in that sense, can be seen as reflecting mainstream opinion. 

But there is still also a sense that China acts too slowly, and ineffectually. If you think about Myanmar, there is this constant waiting for either a special envoy to be appointed or for a move by ASEAN. There’s a sense in which there’s drift, rather than real effective policy. And I think that’s the weakness in the Chinese position. The general principle that military intervention often makes things worse, and that we need to think about other types of approaches: there’s a wide constituency of support for that argument. But the idea that you just wait and let local actors move forward at glacial pace is also not very satisfactory. Things can deteriorate quite rapidly and then become a much more difficult problem to manage, let alone resolve.

We’ve talked about China’s general unwillingness to support intervention. But it is a huge contributor to peacekeeping operations. How do those two facts tally with each other and what can we discern from the places where China does get involved under the UN flag?

Peacekeeping operations have become complex with extremely expansive mandates. They include various human rights-related and governance-related elements, ideas of security sector reform, or the protection of civilians, of women and children, a vast array of demands. China is there as part of those peacekeeping operations, so you could say its activity indicates that it is much more interventionist than its rhetoric implies. 

But what it tends to do within those operations is to adopt a particular role. For many years, it emphasized its role in the building of logistical capacities, or medical and transportation facilities, rather than engaging in the more liberal dimensions of peacekeeping operations. For sure, China has been involved in operations that have a set of mandates to protect civilians. And Chinese forces have been caught up in violence and conflict and have played a protective role. 

But again, China’s emphasis has very much been that it is the state that must protect its own citizens, and it has emphasized what we can do to better protect those troops that are placed within these violent situations. It has done very little in terms of thinking about how the ‘protection of civilians’ mandate can be made more effective. It talks about this as a long-term structural problem inside states, rather than coming up with ideas about how we can respond quickly and react firmly to prevent violence erupting inside a particular country that may result in large scale civilian loss of life. 

Most of those that have studied this question have come up with three or four explanations for the benefits that China derives from participation in peacekeeping. The PLA gains experience from working alongside foreign forces. It helps to build China’s responsible, great power image, and also shows us that China’s increased military capacity is not necessarily something to be feared, but can be a very useful global public good. So it helps this notion of China’s ‘peaceful rise’. 

But it’s also the case that peacekeeping operations can help to share the burden inside countries where China has assets, and where there are Chinese citizens. It’s striking that China’s largest peacekeeping contingent is based in South Sudan, where there are a large number of Chinese personnel in the country and sizable Chinese assets such as oil installations. Most Chinese peacekeeping involvement is in Africa where it has a sizable economic interest, and also sizable numbers of Chinese that expect the state to protect them. There are security issues in a number of the countries where China has infrastructure projects, and its citizenry expects the state to provide support in terms of evacuation when those security situations deteriorate.

Do you think China’s view of the UN’s role could gain more traction in future?

It’s hard to know, because there is obviously some resistance, particularly in the UN Secretariat, and among various democratic countries around the world there is a sense of attachment to these ideas of human protection. It is going to be a really tough thing for China to change the UN fundamentally.

It is the case that as China gains more influence, you will see a tightening of the agenda, and potentially a move away from the idea of UN Secretaries-General playing such an aspirational role. China is becoming a much more significant contributor to the UN budget: Secretaries-General are constantly worried about financing UN operations, and therefore, they have to be responsive to the ideas that the Chinese are putting forward. In that context, you will see a less ambitious UN come to the fore, more reminiscent of the Cold War era, with a more limited agenda and fewer peacekeeping operations. It will not be such an important part of countries’ foreign policy or security agendas. 

I don’t see the UN breaking in any way; I don’t see it fading away. I think it’s too useful in so many respects, but I do see it as a body that maybe will become less ambitious, it’ll be tamed in some way. Of course, this is related to increased Chinese influence, but it’s also related to the doubts about the U.S.’s future role and relationship with the UN. The Biden administration is, in many ways, quite a different animal from the Trump administration, but that ‘America First’ sentiment is still very powerful in the country. All of those things mean that countries are starting to recalibrate the future role of the UN, and how big a role it will play in their conceptions of how you promote international peace and security.

We occasionally see reports about how Chinese officials have taken leading roles on important UN committees and so on. To what extent has China become adept at the internal politics of the UN? 

The Chinese have been underrepresented at high levels within the UN, so it’s a reasonable ambition for them to have more leading roles. I think the main problem is this strong sense that the Chinese citizens who acquire these positions would not operate in an independent manner, they wouldn’t really think of themselves as international civil servants, but as servants of the Chinese state. 

I think the main problem is this strong sense that the Chinese citizens who acquire [high level positions within the UN] would not operate in an independent manner, they wouldn’t really think of themselves as international civil servants, but as servants of the Chinese state. 

That may be fair or unfair, and I’m not trying to pretend that other countries don’t have the same desire to see their international civil servants as potential conduits of influence. On the other hand, I’ve interviewed quite a number of these people, and they’ve said to me, ‘If my country’s government tried to tell me what to do, I’d tell them to take a running jump.’

In the Chinese case, there is this fear that actually they see themselves as Chinese first. That is something of a problem that Chinese candidates face when they go for some of these appointments. And they’re also constrained from gaining some of these appointments because they haven’t had a great deal of experience in international negotiations. There have been relatively few Chinese commanders of peace operations, for example. 

And what about the harder politics of the UN? Is China proving to be better than western countries at providing financial support to smaller countries in order to get support?

I think what we’ve seen in the case of China is a great and surprising willingness to use economic power as a source of influence, threatening punishment or offering largesse in order to press home the point that there could be serious consequences if they don’t vote to support a resolution that China is putting forward at the Human Rights Council, for example. You do see many examples where China will use its economic leverage to try to line up support and line up the votes. It doesn’t always have to do that, because other countries might agree with its formulation. But we do have quite a bit of information and examples of where countries have actually experienced this form of pressure. 

I was very struck in one of my interviews with [a representative] from one emerging power who said to me, ‘If a particular issue is so important to them, and it’s less important to me, why would I go and risk their punishment by standing out against them. There’s nobody else that’s going to protect me if I do that. I just take the easy way out.’

You get the sense that China is very good at showing other countries where its red lines are. And so people, ambassadors, Foreign Ministry people adjust in those circumstances, to where they think they are in a safer place.

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