Historical Overview of China and Intervention at the UN Security Council

Chapter 1 sets the scene regarding China’s record on intervention at the UN Security Council since assuming its seat in 1971. The chapter illustrates how the UN Security Council takes an increasingly expansive view as to what is under its purview—including massive human rights abuses as threats to international peace and security—and the different tools to address these threats (sanctions, the International Criminal Court, peacekeeping operations etc.), against a changing normative discourse regarding the protection of civilians, the responsibility to protect, and the norm of accountability. While China shows calibrated flexibility regarding intervention across the decades, China is still consistent in preferring UN Security Council authorized, consent-based interventions, supported by regional players. However, these principles are applied pragmatically, against an assessment of China’s interests, the circumstances of each country case, and a changing normative framework regarding intervention. In the last decades, there are three trends in China’s approach to intervention: enduring scepticism about the benefits of non-consensual Chapter VII activities; a preference to not make Chapter VII intervention a trend; and the persistence of status as a concern in China’s decision-making. The chapter discusses critical historical cases in detail, including intervention into Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Rwanda, East Timor, and failed attempts at intervention into Guatemala, Macedonia, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe.