[Policy Paper 26] China’s Normative Challenge to the Global Governance System

Year: 2024

Author: Dr. Laia Comerma, Postdoctoral researcher under the Hans van Baalen scholarship

ISSN: 2736-5816

DOI: 10.53121/ELFPP26

The paper analyses China’s proposal for the future of global governance, going beyond its seemingly candid rhetoric to show how it is undermining the legitimacy and contesting the authority of international organisations. Based on China’s vision of the future global order and the values that must govern it, the paper argues that China is contesting specific norms and standards to either undermine the work of international organisations of the economic regime or promote their reform to increase its own power within them.

It illustrates this through two in-depth case studies: the challenge that China’s actions and claims in the South China Sea pose for UNCLOS and the international law of the seas, and China’s vetoes at the UN Security Council and the significance of its ‘no limits’ partnership with Russia. The paper concludes that China is selectively challenging global governance to advance its national interests and that it does not want to overturn the global governance regime but instead wants to adapt global governance to ‘Chinese characteristics’.