Harmonizing ‘Responsibility to Protect’: China’s vision of a post-sovereign world

Abstract

This article examines the recent evolution of China’s policies toward the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) concept in the context of a changing international environment. As an example of an emerging ‘non-Western’ alternative to the existing normative consensus, the Chinese perception of the norm reflects the nature of the ongoing new East–West divide and is derived from Beijing’s new vision of a future world order and China’s role in it. In 2001–2011, China supported R2P as a new mechanism to revise Western practices of humanitarian interventionism and to contribute to a changing multilateral global international legal order exemplifying China’s new status as a responsible ‘global citizen’. When the R2P norm was politicized by the West as part of its global democratic interventionist policies of 2005–2014, China’s predominantly globalist vision of the international rule of law was replaced by its predominantly security-driven approach. This perspective, while recognizing the ongoing globalization of sovereignty, calls for a ‘right balance between justice and interest’ by the international community and denies the traditional Western leadership in the norm-making process. The Communist Party of China (CPC) leaders believe that the future evolution of the R2P concept should meet China’s strategic interests, including its global order-forming and institution-building initiatives. Efforts to operationalize the R2P norm will have to take this factor into account.