ABSTRACT
In examining the degree of consistency or congruence between China’s policy preferences and its actual actions, this chapter investigates China’s concerns about enacting humanitarian intervention in light of the state sovereignty norm defined in a traditional sense. An estimate of likely success in reversing the humanitarian catastrophe, added to extensive media exposure of the lacklustre response of the West to the Kurdish exodus, prompted Western member states to shoulder a bigger responsibility for the worsening plight of the refugees. The chapter compares the policy preferences of China, which can be derived from its strategic preferences on the one hand and its actual deeds and words on the other. The chapter evaluates the differences between China’s normative beliefs and those of the major Western powers as seen in the early development of humanitarian argumentation in the UN. The chapter assesses the ideational gaps between Chinese normative beliefs and the humanitarian intervention argument in the West.
