ABSTRACT
The People’s Republic of China is now entering a new stage in its evolving relationship with international institutions – the third such stage since its establishment in 1949. In the fi rst stage, from 1949 to its entrance into the United Nations in 1971, China was largely isolated from international institutions, in part because of its own decisions, and in part because of the decisions of others. The second, from 1971 to the early part of the twenty-fi rst century, was a period of China’s rapid integration into global and regional institutions of all kinds – political, security, and economics – albeit often in a relatively passive role. Today, we are entering a third phase, in which China is not only becoming a more active international actor, but is also beginning to question some of the structures and norms of the institutions that it has joined. This raises the obvious question of whether Beijing’s more active but skeptical orientation poses a fundamental challenge to the international order, or whether China can be accommodated through relatively modest and evolutionary changes in the structure and norms of the international system.
