Status and Intervention in Syria, 2011–2015

Chapter 6 analyzes China’s decision to halt intervention into the Syria crisis, issuing repeated vetoes instead in 2011, twice in 2012, and again in 2014 against the P3 advocated intervention calling for verbal censure, sanctions, compliance with peace plans, and referral of the Syria case to the International Criminal Court. The chapter challenges the popular view that these four vetoes were a “given” due to the Libya case, which ultimately had led to regime change. The vetoes were not automatic per se; China reconsidered its position, weighing factors against one another before each landmark vote. However, China’s status concerns were largely discounted in this case: there was no status trigger, and concerns about acting within peer group standards did not come into play. None of China’s peer groups could exact social costs on an unresponsive China. China rejected the great powers position that President Bashar al-Assad was no longer a legitimate ruler, and regional players were in internal disarray preventing them from successfully transmitting status signals to China. This is not to say that China was insensitive to status concerns, but that China reconciled status concerns against other interests. China used rhetorical adaptation to clearly distinguish intervention from regime change, and to modify the normative content of the responsibility to protect.