The Responsibility To Protect And China's Humanitarian Intervention Strategy

Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War,many countries in the United Nations(UN)have pushed for resolutions in order to protect civilians from the violence emanating from the conflict between the Bashar al-Assad regime and anti-government opposition,but all resolutions condemningthe Syrian government and calling for any form of intervention as prescribed in the responsibility to protect(R2P)have been vetoed by China and Russia.Due to these vetoes,many Western scholars and government officials have directly blamed Beijing and Moscow for prolonging violence in Syria and creating an international refugee crisis.Until now,most scholars and analysts have treated China's role in vetoing resolutions on humanitarian intervention in Syria as a mere partnership with Russia,concluding that the Beijing government simply aims to oppose Western interventionism.However,such a perspective lacks nuance and does not lend to an understanding of China's role in the United Nations,Beijing's standpoint on the fxture of "international responsibility" and how to respond to fragile and conflict-afflicted states,and how China pursues its geopolitical interests.In order to evaluate these China-specific factors,I describe the generative formation of international norms condemning and responding to state-sponsored violence,the history of the United Nation's implementation of humanitarian intervention,and assess the bad precedent set in intervention in Libya.Humanitarian intervention In Libya,despite rhetorically functioning to protect Libyan civilians,was viewed by China,Russia,and other non-Western countries as a pretext for overthrowing the Gaddafi regime,fostering seeds of Western democracy and influence in a fragile state,and setting a precedent that would allow for the United Nations to implement the use of force in the domestic affairs of other states in the future,all of which contravene the traditional values espoused by Beijing and Moscow.Due to NATO's excessive use of force during intervention in Libya and Tripoli's transitional government being guided by Western institutions and inculcated with democratic values,humanitarian intervention in Libya infringed on China's interpretation of the UN Charter and standpoint on global 5 governance and international responsibility.Therefore,in the case for Syria,China has vetoed resolutions regarding humanitarian intervention due to a fear that any UN mandate will ultimately allow for the use of force so as to support a Western agenda and future influence.Because the international community has been unable to come to a consensus regarding how to ameliorate the situation in Syria,both the United States and Russia have begun to disregard R2P and other international cooperative mediation mechanisms and engage in unilateral military engagements in the region.For this reason,China has begun to show signs of moving away from siding with Russia on issues of international intervention,as the Russian government's unilateral military action in Syria also infringes on China's fundamental international values.Instead,China's involvement in the Syrian crisis more closely aligns with the role of a "peaceful mediator" who opposes aggression from both sides,and rather aims to solve the conflict through political dialogue.In doing so,China's role in the Syrian crisis can be characterized as "watching from a mountain as tigers fight";the Beijing government is able to protect its geopolitical and economic interests by not directly supporting military aggression from either Moscow or Washington.I incorporate UN resolutions and meeting minutes,government press releases,and news reports to evaluate China's unique humanitarian intervention strategy,and ultimately argue that due to the bad precedent set in Libya,diametrically opposed views on intervention and the notion of international responsibility,and personal geopolitical and economic interests in Syria and elsewhere that China is unwilling to adopt any resolution that supports R2P and is likely to oppose any resolution or action that appears to support any semblance of Western interventionism.