Ebook: Rising Powers and International Organisations: The Case of China’s Counterterrorism Strategy at the United Nations

This article illustrates China’s counter-terrorism strategy at the United Nations (UN), analyses its
cornerstones and underscores changing patterns. On this basis, it also seeks to make some broader
observations about how rising powers behave in international organisations and to highlight their
attitudes towards the liberal international order. It considers Chinese positions in the debates in the
General Assembly (1972–2018), its Sixth Committee and the Security Council (since the early 1990s)
and identifies four pillars of China’s counter-terrorism strategy. These include norm entrepreneurship,
diplomatic measures, promotion of international cooperation and domestic measures to fulfil obligations
emanating from UN resolutions, conventions and declarations. It shows how China has shaped the
discourse on terrorism at the UN and how its counter-terror narratives and advocacy have been and
are being shaped by the discourse among states and competing blocs like the Organization of Islamic
Conference over this period. It concludes with the observation that, despite changes in its strategy
in recent years, the defining principles of China’s counter-terrorism strategy, such as respect for state
sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs, have not eroded. Changes like accepting that the
UN must play a ‘central coordination role’ in international counter-terrorism should be regarded as
a further extension of China’s zeal to maintain the international order because the UN is a defining
pillar of the present international order.