Is China really a revisionist power? Assessing Chinese participation in intergovernmental organisations

Appearing in front of a crowd at Richard Nixon’s childhood home, months before the 50^th anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s visit to China, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo took to the podium to clarify the Trump administration’s position on China.

Secretary Pompeo’s speech detailed how the People’s Republic of China, and indeed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has threatened to upend the rules-based international order and urged immediate action from the free world to maintain their liberty.

Suggesting that the People’s Liberation Army is an offensive — rather than defensive — force, Secretary Pompeo warned those in attendance that the free world will succumb to Chinese domination.

“If we don’t act now, ultimately the CCP will erode our freedoms and subvert the rules-based order that our societies have worked so hard to build. If we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party, whose actions are the primary challenge today in the free world,” Secretary Pompeo explained.

Secretary Pompeo’s speech capped a series of four dialogues from senior members of the American government — including National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, FBI Director Chris Wray and Attorney General Bill Barr — detailing how the People’s Republic of China seeks to institute global hegemony and override the global order.

In revising this global order, Secretary Pompeo reflected that the US has been victim to a range of grey-zone operations, painting the nation as inherently opposed to free societies.

“We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the Chinese Communist Party exploit our free and open society. China sent propagandists into our press conferences, our research centers, our high schools, our colleges, and even into our PTA meetings,” he continued.

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The irony that the speech was being delivered outside of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum was not lost on Secretary Pompeo, using the occasion to offer clarification — albeit posthumously — to the deceased President’s China policy.

While President Nixon encouraged China to join “the family of nations”, the speaker reiterated that even the President’s prophetic 1967 speech on China acknowledged that it had to induce change in the Communist state as the “world cannot be safe” with the CCP.

While Secretary Pompeo’s political speech laid an ideological framework reaffirming the Trump administration’s belief that China was a revisionist state seeking to upend international norms, emerging data on Chinese activities within the United Nations has illustrated a growing willingness for the state to work within existing global frameworks to strengthen their position.

In a recent report for the Lowy Institute, associate Professor Courtney Fung and Shing-hon Lam determined that the CCP “no longer” brushes off its power at the UN, but actively works within the organisation to achieve its global agenda.

This increased participation marks a pivot from the CCP’s initial participation in the UN during its early years, which the pair described as “reclusive”.

“China pursued a fifth voting style, that is, not voting for or against or being absent or abstaining, but choosing not to vote while still present at the UN Security Council to signal rejection of the hegemonic system without impeding the council in addressing international security affairs,” the pair described.

This historical tendency has begun to erode over recent years, leveraging their role on the UN Security Council and helping to construct a legislative agenda that supports Chinese aspirations.

“China is no longer a sparing veto user at the UN Security Council, having cast 10 vetoes regarding the Syria crisis alone over the last decade,” they continued.

“It also pushes to insert its own global governance rhetoric of a ‘shared future’ into UN documentation. In so doing, China counters the traditional UN focus on development, human rights, and peace and security as the means to promote just and stable societies, with its own state-centric approach that dismisses universal values and instead champions each state as unique.”

While China’s willingness to play a larger role in international affairs by working within the frameworks of global institutions would suggest that the nation is indeed not revisionist, rather perhaps opportunistic, China’s perception of international relations puts it at odds with the UN Charter.

According to associate Professor Fung and Lam, this includes ideological disagreements with fundamental liberal concepts such as the equality of states.

“Even as China emphasises the ‘democratisation’ of international relations in pursuit of a multipolar order, it separates ‘major power’ or ‘big countries’ from ‘smaller countries’, which should in practice respect their reduced foreign policy space given their more limited material endowments,” they contend.

Likewise, Professor Rana Mitter from the University of Oxford pours cold water on suggestions that China is seeking to fundamentally alter the global order as a revisionist state.

Observing that much of China’s power relies on international frameworks to maintain economic growth, the CCP seeks to shift the frame of reference of international law from “individual rights” to “national sovereignty” to ensure their continued economic growth.

“Unlike Russia, which has a clear interest in destroying key parts of the existing global infrastructure particularly in Europe and the Middle East, China has many motivations to preserve or slowly adapt aspects of the existing international order,” Professor Mitter argued.

“China is central to the global economy in a way that Russia is not, energy aside; that means that many more countries are dependent on links to China, but also that China itself would find disruption all the more damaging.”

Your say

Is China a revisionist power that seeks to fundamentally change the international rules-based order? Or will it work within international governance architectures to manufacture its continued growth from within? Join the debate in the comments section below.