ABSTRACT

One of the most visible changes in China’s foreign policy since the Dengist foreign policy reforms began has been in the country’s approach to multilateralism and international regimes and organisations. As the country’s global interests have expanded, China has optimised its use of organisations in order to gain more goods and information from the international system. Moreover, as China’s power grows, it has greater ability to help shape the policies and directions of political, economic and strategic organisations, and as a result has seen its structural power rise. Structural power is a concept which has been described broadly as the ability to influence rules, norms and the ‘structure’ of the relationship patterns within the international system. This type of power is also based on the ability and capacity of an actor to ‘socialise’ with other actors in foreign relations to gain either material or political (such as prestige and diplomatic power) goods. This stands in contrast to the more traditional ‘coercive power’, namely the ability to use force or other pressures to prompt an actor to do something they would not normally do.1 China has gone from having structural power levels which were, at best, negligible under Mao to possessing an abundance, as has been demonstrated by Beijing’s recent behaviour towards a growing variety of institutions ranging from international (the United Nations) to more regional (such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation). As the number of international organisations continues to grow in the post-Cold War system, China is embedding itself more intensively in global networks. The effect of this deep engagement on modern Chinese foreign policymaking is a question worthy of further study. The transformation of China’s view of international organisations is especially

remarkable when one considers its past history with them. Imperial China experienced a very harsh introduction to international regimes, including the perceived negligence of the League of Nations and the harsh conditions of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. After 1949, Maoist China was shut out of the United Nations and then fought directly with Americanbacked United Nations forces during the Korean War. It was only under the reformist government of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin that China’s views on multilateral institutions became increasingly favourable. Today, in many cases China has switched its policies towards existing regimes from primarily ‘reactive’, meaning focusing on observing and collecting information from within a regime, to a more active stance by openly proposing policies and reforms and occasionally seeking to manoeuvre regimes in new directions. China’s rise has been matched by an increasing confidence in engaging international institutions. However, Beijing’s ongoing concerns about containment via security

alliances has meant increasingly viewing the United Nations, as well as more informal security communities, as better tools in addressing international problems too large or complex for Beijing to solve alone. While China also continues to follow its longstanding practice of establishing one-to-one partnerships with selected states, and seeking partnerships with large states, it is also more open to engagement with smaller actors. Although China has not followed the lead of the Soviet Union in attempting to develop regimes to counter or balance the West along the lines of the old Warsaw Pact, Beijing is nonetheless signalling that it will no longer remain passive within the institutions that it joins. One of the most distinct features of a rising China is that it is developing into a great

and potentially global power within an international system now dominated by institutions, regimes, organisations, laws and norms, a considerably different situation faced by other rising powers, such as Britain, the United States and Soviet Union, which ascended to the highest ranks of states in a world considerably less multilateral in its global relations. The process of the ‘institutionalisation’ of international relations is seen as both entrenched and still developing.2 As well, unlike in previous cases of great power development, China can make more extensive use of organisations to seek power and goods rather than constantly having to resort to hard power. Membership in international institutions does carry risks, including the possibility of some members ‘defecting’ (leaving an organisation, possibly weakening it), ‘cheating’ (breaking set rules) or ‘free-riding’ (benefiting from a regime without sufficiently contributing to it). Yet institutions have continued to grow in number and it has been suggested that the overall level of compliance in inter-state organisations is high, to the benefit of their memberships.3 Therefore, the current international system is very conducive for a state, especially a large one with much actual and latent power, to deeply engage them. China’s approaches to multilateralism (duojihua) have matured considerably, becoming a major aspect of its foreign policy, especially important in today’s climate of increasing ties between China and evergrowing numbers of regions, sub-regions and state actors well beyond Asia. However, Beijing’s approach to multilateralism continues to evolve and in some cases, especially in defence matters, there remain some lingering suspicions about the potential loss of Chinese sovereignty as a result of deeper regime engagement.