Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia

Abstract 

This working paper builds upon an emerging literature regarding sensitivity to foreign-imposed regime change in Chinese foreign policy. I argue here that China’s misgivings about foreign-imposed regime change also affect China’s response to interventions at the UN Security Council. First, the paper establishes the connection between regime change and interventions at the UN Security Council. Next, the paper categorizes why Chinese scholars and policymakers deride regime change using an analysis of Chinese-language sources. Last, the article draws on recent UN Security Council cases of intervention to reflect on the practical implications of China’s sensitivity to regime change for its engagement in UN Security Council-led interventions.

Quotes from the PaperChina’s misgivings about regime change are not limited to affecting Sino-US relations, but also affect China’s response to intervention at the UN Security Council.

In the post-11 September landscape, foreign-imposed regime change has re-emerged as a foreign policy tool and goal applied to target dictators in Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Sudan, for example, and as a domestic policy goal of street-led movements trying to instigate political change during the Arab Spring, for example.

Though China espouses a firm commitment to more conservative principles in regards to intervention, it is flexible in the application of these principles in practice, emphasizing its commitment to limiting intervention to conditions of UN Security Council authorization, host state consent and regional support.

Regime change can occur, at one extreme, through a direct military intervention using force to abruptly remove senior leadership of a government. Regime change can also occur as a by-product following non-militarized intervention (dispatching aid to rebels, the use of legal tools to target heads of state etc.). It is important to separate regime change as the publicized, explicit goal of intervention from when it occurs as a “side-effect of international involvement…that is structured around other objectives, such as economic liberalization or democratization…”

…Refuting attempts to subvert sovereignty remains an integral commitment due to the need to protect China’s sovereignty and political stability. With such deeply-held beliefs that the “ultimate goal of ‘Western powers’ is to overthrow [Chinese leadership’s] rule,” China remains committed to preventing initiatives via the UN Security Council that could challenge China’s security and stability. So, while China has become increasingly flexible regarding the parameters for intervention, it remains clear that China views regime change as non-permissible.

In China’s view, regime change is not an activity that the UN Security Council should be endorsing, and as the Syria case illustrates, China has repeatedly shown its willingness to contest the definitions of an ‘appropriate’ intervention in the international peace and security order. Whether such a clear delineation of intervention from regime change is politically feasible and practical to maintain once an intervention has begun is a related matter to consider.

Author
Courtney J. Fung is an assistant professor of International Relations at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. She was recently an honorary research fellow at the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney during a semester-long research sabbatical. Before joining the faculty at the University of Hong Kong, Dr. Fung was a post-doctoral research fellow with the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, based at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. Prior positions include research fellowships with the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, and with the Global Peace Operations Program at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. Dr. Fung's book manuscript explains China’s varied response to intervention and regime change at the United Nations Security Council. She conducted extensive fieldwork for this project, including participant observation at the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Other research projects include India and China’s responses to the responsibility to protect, and an RGC Early Career Scheme-funded project on the impact of regional organizations on China’s position on intervention at the United Nations.