Patterns of Behavior in China's Foreign Policy: The Gulf Crisis and Beyond

Abstract

Since the Gulf War, there has been considerable scholarly interest in examining the decisions and actions of major players in world politics during the Gulf crisis and trying to determine their broader ramifications. In the case of China, the inquiry centers on why China voted in favor of the first 11 United Nations resolutions that condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and abstained on the twelfth-that is, Resolution 678 of November 29, 1990, which from the U.S. point of view was historic as it set the deadline for Iraqi withdrawal and authorized U.N. member nations to adopt the measures necessary to restore peace in the region if Iraq failed to meet that deadline. Was China's decision to abstain a temporary expedient or an action guided by long-term policy objectives in the post-Cold War era? Some conclusions have been drawn by observers regarding these questions, and this article investigates whether they are adequate explanations of China's decision or whether there are other factors as yet unconsidered. I try to determine if certain underlying patterns of Chinese foreign policy behavior, old and new, can be detected by analyzing China's behavior during the Gulf crisis. A search for patterns of behavior will contribute to a fuller understanding of Chinese foreign policy in the 1990s.