China and the Third Pillar

As a rising power, China has cautiously undertaken international responsibilities such as regional stability and peace. This has included the dispatching of blue helmet and engineer troops under the UN framework to assume mine-clearing and infrastructure (re)construction in post-conflict regions. Moreover, China has accepted the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) norm, which it endorsed at the World Summit in 2005 and later under UNSCR 1674. China has accepted the RtoP principle despite its traditional doctrine of non-intervention and its “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence”. As put forward by Zhou Enlai when he received an Indian government delegation on 31 December 1953, nonintervention is central to the “Five Principles” as they refer to mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. Fifty years on, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (2004) called the “Five Principles” “the cornerstone of China’s independent foreign policy”. At the same time, China remains persistently cautious about the non-consensual use of force and is reticent about applying sanctions, particularly when these measures are not fully backed by relevant international and regional organizations. This ambivalent attitude and behavior relates to China’s UN diplomacy, domestic realpolitik and the country’s strategic culture.