Protecting endangered marine species in CITES: China and selective socialization

ABSTRACT In the contemporary era, a few global North countries have been dominant actors in global environmental governance. However, as their approach has resulted in an imbalance of benefits and costs across regions, there has been an increasing effort to incorporate socio-economic and livelihoods aspects into wildlife protection strategies. Within this ongoing discussion, I explore how China, as a rising power, approached the environmental norms of protecting endangered marine species in the last decades. By tracing its policy development from 2003 to 2019, I find that China has changed its policy from challenging to reconciling and finally to reconfiguring its governance practice. Drawing upon socialization scholarship, I argue that China’s policy adaptation demonstrates selective socialization, where an actor makes issue-specific decisions involving reconciling the discrepancy between international norms and domestic interests. This study has far-reaching implications on China's potential role and influence in global governance on protecting wildlife. First, its marine biodiversity policy reaches beyond existing approaches and represents values and interests with regard to marine species. Second and relatedly, China’s socialization processes are bidirectional, generating alternative approaches to international norms within existing governance practice.