“Power Shifts in International Organisations: China at the United Nations”

Is China in the process of overturning the so-called rules-based international order, as many Western analysts fear? This special issue of an academic journal examines Chinese attempts to expand its influence across a variety of United Nations institutions and finds a mixed picture. Beijing has worked especially hard within the UN system to advance norms of noninterference and cultural relativism in the area of human rights. It has used UN development agencies to promote Chinese technologies and practices. It participates in peacekeeping operations, contributing around three percent of UN peacekeepers. In the Security Council, China rarely leads in drafting resolutions, instead wielding the threat of its veto to edit out language that would protect human rights but that Beijing maintains would infringe on national sovereignty. China places fewer citizens in UN staff positions than its population and dues assessment entitle it to. In all, the contributors to this special issue show China working within the UN system the same way other powers do, exercising influence selectively and succeeding when other states share its interests.