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Dr Katherine Morton
China and the future of international norms
How is China’s growing economic and geopolitical power translating into influence over the norms of international conduct? This is a critically important, but deceptively difficult question to address. To date, attention has largely focused upon China’s ability to comply with international norms rather than its ability to project its own norms and values into the international arena. The centuries-old Western liberal order has provided the prism through which Chinese behaviour has been observed. China’s rising global status means that we are now looking in the opposite direction. The problem is that China’s approach towards advocating international norms is not easy to identify. |
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Dr Kerry Brown
China's normative challenge
What kind of power is China, and how might it affect those in the rest of the world? The speed of China’s economic rise since entering the World Trade Organization (WTO) a decade ago has lent a sharper urgency to this question than we, or the Chinese leadership, may have expected. |
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Professor Malcolm Cook
The historical and economical foundations of China's international norms
I agree with the argument of the piece that “For those who look to China to share more responsibility in the world, prepare for a very slow process. As Chinese power and wealth accumulate, the question is whether Beijing’s overriding emphasis upon countering Western hegemony can be tolerated by other states with far higher expectations of great power responsibility.” The PRC is in a historically unique position as the first developing economy that is simultaneously, due to the sheer size of its economy and its sustained growth, a recognised great power globally. The fact that it is still an unapologetic authoritarian political system in the current inter-state system where the other recognised global powers, with the partial exception of Russia, are liberal democracies simply adds to the PRC’s uniqueness. Even if India’s comparably large population base and more recent sustained economic dynamism eventually lifts India to the status of a global power, it will not face as challenging an international norms situation as does the PRC today. |
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Dr James Reilly
National interests, international norms, and state sovereignty
How will China use its burgeoning economic and political power to shape world politics? As Katherine Morton points out in her thoughtful contribution to this ASPI Strategic Policy Forum, the likely direction and scope of China’s influence upon international norms is one of the most important and complex issues in world politics. The norm of state sovereignty, a pillar of the international system for centuries, provides a useful bellwether for assessing China’s approach to international norms and institutions. |
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Dr John Lee
China and the tactical utility of international norms
Katherine Morton’s conclusion that we should not expect, much less fear, the imminent arrival of an alternative Chinese normative order is correct. Although rightly regarded as one of the world’s great and enduring civilisations, Chinese ‘soft power’ is still weak compared to its growing ‘hard power’ capabilities. In assessments of its own ‘comprehensive national power’—which includes normative power—Beijing considers itself to be not just behind America but also leading European states such as the United Kingdom and France. Although becoming more active in global institutions, China remains a relatively passive participant in organisations such as the United Nations and within the Security Council compared to permanent members America, the United Kingdom and France. In short, China is finding it difficult to translate economic size into normative leadership, let alone dominance. |
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Dr Rod Lyon
Exploring the complexity of China's international norms
I think Katherine Morton’s piece nicely unfolds the complexity of China’s current thinking on international norms: some of those are the norms of a classic Westphalian vision of international relations; others are more the creation of Chinese culture and history. As she suggests, it’s probably the global governance norms that cause China the greatest angst, because those are the norms which ask Beijing to take responsibility for global and regional orders. I tend to see China’s international norms typically as those of an introverted strategic culture. And introverted powers don’t usually have a ‘governance’ vision for the world; they tend either to ‘inherit’ or ‘reject’ the norms of others—choosing selectively those norms that best suit their particular interests. But China’s not just an introverted power, it’s a developing one, and—from history—has ambivalent attitudes towards that international system which others press it to own. |
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Dr Katherine Morton
Rejoinder
International norms reflect national interests and provide a means of monitoring how states perceive their place in the world. No state advocates norms that are counter to its interests. International norms are also often at odds with actual state behaviour. China is not alone in being caught between its normative claims and geopolitical priorities. Rather the uniqueness of China’s normative status lies in its dual identity as a powerful yet still developing state. |
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