Bounded Ambition: China as a Multilateral Actor in World Politics
Since the 1980s, China has become steadily enmeshed in multilateral international organizations (MIOs). A rich body of rhetoric and behaviour is available to deepen our understanding of why and how Beijing engages with MIOs, additionally allowing a response to the question of whether China's engagement is shifting the global normative landscape in ways that significantly affect the on-going transition in global order. With these aims in mind, this Element first adopts a 'snapshot' macro-analytical perspective that draws on existing scholarship and official documentation to compare two eras of Chinese MIO engagement across several issue areas. The Element next adopts a case-study, process-driven, understanding of China and MIOs, examining the evolution of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It concludes that China, through incremental measures, is fashioning reordering that pushes in similar directions. However, this capacity to effect significant change varies considerably across institutional settings.
"Bounded Ambition: China as a Multilateral Actor in World Politics" was co-authored by Rosemary Foot and Xueying Zhang.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Rosemary Foot, Oxford University
Rosemary Foot is Professor and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations. She is also an associate of the China Centre, and an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College. Previously she was Professor of International Relations, and the John Swire Senior Research Fellow in the International Relations of East Asia at St Antony's College, Oxford University from 1990-2014. She was Senior Tutor, 2003-2005, and Acting Warden of the College from December 2011 to September 2012. Professor Foot studied at the University of Essex (1972), the London School of Oriental and African Studies (1973), and the London School of Economics and Political Science where she completed a PhD degree in 1977. She then took up a post as Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex, in the School of English and American Studies, acting as Sub Dean of the School from 1985 and 1987, and moving to Oxford in 1990.
This event is organised by the Global Governance Centre on behalf of the Global Governance Research Centre Consortium.
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