China and Global Governance: Four Pathways to Cross a Threshold

Abstract

The article examines China’s evolving role in global governance by three steps. Firstly, it develops a basic typology of state relationship with global institutions. Secondly, it applies the typology to systematically examine the case of China, using evidence from the fields of economic development, security, human rights, environmental protection, and energy. By doing so, it provides a more detailed intellectual map of China’s partial and uneven inclusion in global governing regimes. Thirdly, and most importantly, the article identifies four pathways of China’s ascent in global governance as a result of the variant patterns of her current relations with various global institutions and regimes. Beneath seemingly similar assertive actions by China, there is diversity. It is only in the fields where China has achieved most in adopting and internalizing global principles and practices, the state has taken bold steps to pursue leading roles in relevant global governing bodies. And, even in these cases, there are few real signs that China will revolt the existing ways of managing global public affairs and replace them with completely new ones. In fact, what China will be more concerned about in the near future is rather to get her foot in the door in some important policy areas such as oil and gas where she has not been a full member in the institutional building processes at the global-level yet.