China’s Perspectives on Public International Law: Selective Adaptation of International Treaties and the Community of Common Destiny Concept

Abstract

This study analyses two aspects of China’s perspectives on public international law: the implementation mechanism that gives legal effect to international treaties within the Chinese domestic legal system and the views of Chinese international law scholars on the important foreign policy concept of ‘the community of common destiny for mankind’. The author argues that the mode of domestic treaty implementation is aimed at flexibility to allow for the selective adaptation of contents of international law that promote the national interests of the Chinese party-State. How Chinese international law scholars flesh out the legal substance of the community of common destiny concept accords with findings that regard China’s norm-making activities as a dialectical process that emphasises both the normative status quo and changes to the international legal order. Intended changes of public international law appear to be regime type specific as they primarily attempt to legitimise and facilitate the perpetuation of the authoritarian system. I. Introduction