Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the People's Republic of China has been on a mission to break what it describes as ‘Western hegemony’ around global norms. Beijing is engaged in a struggle to strengthen its influence in global governance and has identified increasing China's ‘discourse power’ at the United Nations (UN) as key to achieving this goal. Focused on human rights, this paper examines China's project to enhance its discourse power at the UN. It assesses how successful Beijing has been in shaping language, concepts and norms at the UN and to what extent there has been a power shift in line with China's aspirations. It concludes that in China's efforts to enhance its power over meaning at the UN, it relies less on its powers of persuasion to effect what Barnett and Duvall term productive power and more on compulsory power. China's vision for global governance and its growing clout at the UN has great implications for international order. In essence, China seeks to reshape international norms so that human rights become each member state's ‘internal affairs’ rather than a legitimate concern of the international community.
Policy Implications
- Policymakers and diplomats need to raise their level of China literacy, so that they can better understand and react to the PRC government’s campaign to undermine and repurpose the UN human rights system.
- As one of the three pillars of the UN, human rights only receives a tiny share of the UN regular budget: 4.3% in 2023. To safeguard the independence and integrity of the international human rights system, UN member states need to properly resource it.
- Member states need to put human rights front and center in their engagement strategies with China, and not just ‘de-risk’ and raise human rights when it is politically and commercially expedient to do so.
Photo by Van Trang Ho