Chinese Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council Joel
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Beyond the Veto: Chinese Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council Joel Wuthnow Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2011 © 2011 Joel Wuthnow All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Beyond the Veto: Chinese Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council Joel Wuthnow Once described as a “diligent apprentice,” China has emerged in the early 21 st century as an active and sometimes contentious participant in the UN Security Council. For the U.S., China has complicated decision-making on a range of issues, including North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Libya. China’s material interests in several of these “pariah states” has raised problems for attempts to target such regimes through the Council and its powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Yet China’s positions on these cases have been mixed. It has sometimes aligned with the U.S. (as it did on Libya), and has, at other times, stood in opposition (as on Burma). This study seeks to explain the variance. Drawing on an array of sources, it weighs five hypotheses against the empirical record. These explanations are centered on two sets of factors. First are the strategic risks of cooperation, i.e. the chance that coercion will harm China’s interests. Second are the political ramifications, i.e. the potential costs to China’s relations with the U.S., regional stakeholders and others associated with particular positions. Prefaced by a historical narrative of China’s changing role in the Council from 1971 through 2011, the analysis covers eight cases, spanning China’s diplomacy on North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Burma and Zimbabwe. Five are positive cases, insofar as Beijing supported U.S.-backed resolutions. These include the issues of North Korea and Iran. Three are negative cases, in which China maintained opposition. These include proposed sanctions on Sudan in 2007, and draft resolutions on Burma and Zimbabwe. The primary conclusion is that both strategic and political explanations can provide insight into the development of China’s positions. Specifically, China’s bargaining power is at its greatest when credible outside options exist and when there is a division in attitudes towards the legitimacy of the preferences of the U.S. and its allies, and weakest under the opposite conditions. From a policy point of view, the U.S. will have to craft nimble diplomatic strategies and carefully assess when to proceed versus when to yield. However, Washington can assume that China will remain a status-quo oriented, and relatively predictable, participant within the UNSC. Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures ii Acknowledgements iv Introduction 1 1. Strategic Restraint: China in the Security Council, 1971-2011 21 2. The Pariah Puzzle: Five Explanations 75 3. Pressuring Pyongyang: North Korea (2006 and 2009) 117 4. The Tehran Tangle: Iran (2010) 173 5. Deploying to Darfur: Sudan (2007) 222 6. China Says “No:” Burma (2007) and Zimbabwe (2008) 273 Conclusion 323 Bibliography 341 Appendix: Chinese Disassociation in the Security Council 368 i List of Tables and Figures Table 1: The UNSC Before and After the Cold War 6 Figure 1: China, Russia Trade with Nine Illiberal States 15 Table 2: P5 Voting in the Security Council, 1971-1979 28 Table 3: P5 Voting in the Security Council, 1980-1989 35 Table 4: P5 Voting in the Security Council, 1990-1999 40 Table 5: Chinese Abstentions on Sanctions-Related Votes in the 1990s 50 Table 6: P5 Voting in the Security Council, 2000-2009 56 Figure 2: China’s Voting Affinity with the U.S. and Russia, 1971-2009 57 Figure 3: Chinese Personnel Contributions to PKOs, 2000-2009 62 Table 7: PRC Economic and Military Relations with Targeted States 68 Table 8: Selected Positive Cases 78 Table 9: Selected Negative Cases 80 Table 10: Hyp otheses 110 Table 11 : Key Dates in UNSC Negotiations on North Korea 124 Table 12: Summary of Findings (North Korea) 170 Table 13: Key Dates in UNSC Negotiations on Iran, 2006-2010 178 Table 14: Summary of Findings (Iran) 219 Table 15: Key Security Council Decisions on Darfur, 2004-7 227 Table 16: China-Sudan Bilateral Encounters, November 2006-June 2007 242 Table 17: Summary of Findings (Sudan) 268 Table 18 : Key Dates in China’s Vetoes on Burma and Zimbabwe 283 Table 19 : Summary of Findings (Burma and Zimbabwe) 320 ii Table 20: Overall Summary of Findings 325 iii Acknowledgements Thanks go, first and foremost, to my dissertation advisers, Andrew Nathan and Michael Doyle. Both generously offered detailed feedback and advice at all stages of the project. It is hard to imagine completing the manuscript without their dedication and insight. The other members of my dissertation committee (Lori Damrosch, Tonya Putnam, and Jack Snyder) provided excellent advice as well. Several other professors at Columbia also gave helpful comments at various points along the way: Gerald Curtis, Page Fortna, Shigeo Hirano, Robert Jervis, Samuel Kim, Edward Luck, Victoria Murillo, Pablo Pinto, and Kay Shimizu. I am indebted to a number of individuals for help in arranging interviews in China: Jean-Marc Blanchard, Matt Ferchen, Alastair Iain Johnston, Robert Ross, and Jian Zhang. Several Chinese scholars and diplomats took time to speak with me, and I owe them considerable thanks even if I cannot cite them by name. The same holds for several Western diplomats, who were equally frank. My thanks also go to discussants at conferences where versions of this work were presented: Nick Thomas at HKPSA, Jing Tao at APSA, and Tristan Mabry at ISA. Thanks also to three anonymous reviewers for feedback on an iteration of this project that was published in the Chinese Journal of International Politics , and to the editors of that journal, Yan Xuetong and Sun Xuefeng. The Brookings Institution hosted me for nine months in 2010-2011, and was an ideal place to write and learn. Cheng Li was particularly helpful, though thanks go also to Richard Bush, Ken Lieberthal, Martin Indyk, Ted Piccone, Stefano Recchia, Katherine Silkin, Julia Cates and Jacqueline Geis for making me feel at home. iv A number of professors who influenced my thinking and helped me develop skills used in this project also deserve mention. At Princeton: Kent Calder, Aaron Friedberg, Hal Feiveson, Gil Rozman, and Dick Ullman. At Oxford: Rosemary Foot, Rana Mitter, and Vivienne Shue. And at Columbia: Thomas Bernstein, Richard Betts, Erik Gartzke, and Xiaobo Lü. I also wish to credit my Chinese language teachers, especially Chih-ping Chou, Lening Liu, and Zhirong Wang. Finally, my family gave me all the support I could have asked for and much more: in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, my parents, Robert and Sara; in Springfield, Virginia, my sister Brooke and brother-in-law Mike, and their sons, Kyle and Alex; and in Wilmette, Illinois, my sister Robyn and brother-in-law Andy, and their sons, Jake and Henry. v 1 “The well-bred, throbbing sound that goes on behind the Bauhaus façade of the United Nations is not the air conditioning. It is the pulse of politics.” 1 -Alastair Cooke, British journalist (1953) Introduction Two recent episodes illustrate the constraints on U.S. influence in the UN Security Council (UNSC). First, the U.S. was unable to secure a Council statement condemning the November 22, 2010, North Korean artillery barrage of Yeonpyeong Island, a Yellow Sea territory controlled by South Korea, which resulted in the deaths of two civilians and two military personnel. Following a month of consultations, in which members diverged over North Korea’s culpability and the possibility that a statement could incite further tensions, the Council abandoned attempts to issue a formal response. According to U.S. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, “I think it’s safe to predict that the gaps that remain are unlikely to be bridged.” 2 Washington had been unable to gather sufficient support to criticize, let alone substantively respond to, a military attack against one of its own allies. Second, on March 17, 2011, the U.S., along with allies Britain and France, was barely able to muster 10 votes in favor of a no-fly zone on Libya. The resolution was intended to prevent the killing of civilians, following an uprising against the rule of Muammar el-Qaddafi based in the eastern city of Benghazi. Qaddafi had previously pledged to show “no mercy” as his forces were poised to kill the rebels and their 1 Quoted in Ernst B. Haas, “Types of Collective Security: An Examination of Operational Concepts,” American Political Science Review 49 (1955), 40. 2 Neil MacFarquhar, “At Security Council, A Stalemate Over Blame,” New York Times , December 20, 2010. 2 sympathizers. 3 Five states—the so-called BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as Germany—abstained. According to David Bosco, the probable reasons that China and Russia did not simply veto the resolution were that they didn’t care enough about the issue, and that they may have even “liked the idea of the West spending time and resources in Libya.” 4 The tenuousness of the vote underscored the limits on U.S. diplomatic power in the Council. However, these vignettes are not meant to suggest that U.S. influence had waned a decade into the 21 st century, or even that its leverage was on a downward trajectory. The U.S. had been able to secure sweeping sanctions against Libya, including an International Criminal Court indictment of Qaddafi, in February 2011. It had obtained sanctions against North Korea in 2006 and 2009, Iran four times between 2006 and 2010, Eritrea in 2009, and Côte D’Ivoire in 2010, among others.