https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/6/living-the-chinese-dream-beijings-new-world-order
随着北京增强外交影响力，分析人士表示，北京希望“重塑”甚至取代现有的全球机构。
习近平和夫人彭丽媛在人民大会堂外台阶底部的红地毯上。他们身后有三名身着礼服的士兵在台阶中间。
自去年取消 COVID-19 限制以来，中国国家主席习近平加强了外交力度 [文件：Thomas Peter/Pool via Reuters]
作者：Frederik Kelter 2023 年 6 月 6 日
自去年年底中国放弃零 COVID 政策以来，北京一直参与从东到西的一系列活动。
印度果阿峰会、新加坡和南非军事演习、德国总理和法国总统的访问以及中国国家主席习近平访问俄罗斯和沙特阿拉伯只是北京最近旋风外交的几个例子。
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中国称向太平洋试射了带有“假弹头”的洲际弹道导弹
台湾总统赖清德表示将“抵制吞并或侵占”
尽管西方领导人谈到与中国脱钩或降低经济关系的风险，但中国仍然与世界经济紧密相连，是120多个国家的最大贸易伙伴。
中国孤军奋战的日子已经一去不复返了，中国政府似乎满足于默默旁观世界事务。现在，北京正在努力争取与其世界第二大经济体地位相匹配的外交地位。
在联合国纪念中华人民共和国加入联合国 50 周年会议上，习近平发表讲话，谈到中国的外交崛起，并谈到北京致力于建立以追求和平、民主和人权以及拒绝单边主义、外国干涉和强权政治为特征的世界秩序。
3 月中旬，在北京举行的全球政党对话会上，习近平重申了他对同一原则的承诺。
习近平在主旨演讲中介绍了全球文明倡议 (GCI)，作为将这些原则正式化的一种方式，其附加目的是鼓励各国“充分利用其历史和文化的相关性”和“欣赏不同文明的价值观，避免将自己的价值观或模式强加于他人”。
连同此前提出的全球发展倡议（GDI）和全球安全倡议（GSI），全球倡议似乎囊括了中国国家主席对新国际秩序的总体愿景——尽管内容不明确。
姚元叶在美国圣托马斯大学教授中国研究。他认为，这样的秩序将部分取代国际体系，部分重塑国际体系，使其成为一套更符合中国共产党世界观的新结构。
“这将是一个不会限制共产主义中国，反而会促进其崛起的世界秩序，”他说。
另一种说法
3 月份对话会的目的在某种程度上是充当中国对美国民主峰会的回应，美国在当月第二次举行民主峰会，旨在团结世界民主国家。
虽然蒙古、塞尔维亚和南非的领导人都受邀参加这两次活动，但美国峰会主要邀请了华盛顿的传统盟友，而北京的峰会则邀请了哈萨克斯坦、俄罗斯、苏丹和委内瑞拉的领导人。
中国领导人和官方媒体将中共的对话会议描绘成中国拥抱世界各国愿景的一部分，其中包括与俄罗斯和缅甸等国家保持甚至深化外交联系。
近几个月来，中国政府确实表现出了与各种世界参与者接触的意愿。
题为“中国现代化与世界”的论坛大厅。两块大屏幕上播放着习近平的正式肖像
中国外交部长秦刚于 4 月在上海举行的中国现代化与世界论坛上宣读习近平的一封信 [档案：Ng Han Guan/美联社照片]
中国外交在 3 月伊朗与沙特阿拉伯关系缓和中发挥了作用。同样在 3 月，中国外交部长访问了缅甸政变领导人敏昂莱，而习近平则前往莫斯科会见了俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京。
4 月，习近平与乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基通了电话，上个月，他的特使试图为北京主导的结束俄罗斯在乌克兰战争的计划争取支持。北京也被认为是潜在的
冲突肆虐的苏丹的和平斡旋人。
位于北京的全球化研究中心高级研究员安迪·莫克表示，中国处理国际关系的方式是“和而不同”的心态。
“它更多地由共同的未来定义，而不是共同的价值观定义，”他告诉半岛电视台。
这意味着，尽管西方国家有时会以遵守一套价值观为条件进行互动和合作，但中国希望将其参与建立在发展潜力和未来利益的基础上，莫克说。
这项政策在很大程度上遵循了中共的信念，即发展和繁荣不一定会导致采纳这些所谓的西方价值观。中国领导层经常批评“某些国家”将自己的原则强加于其他国家，不尊重具有不同文化和传统的非西方国家的管理方式。
莫克认为，北京的世界秩序将由多极化定义，他说中国没有成为主导大国的计划。
“我不认为世界秩序的改变是新老板简单地取代旧老板的情况。”
重新配置现有的世界秩序
中国政府表示，尽管中国领导层经常反对强加西方价值观，但这并不意味着北京希望在全球舞台上抛弃民主、人权和法治。
习近平今年 3 月访问莫斯科时，与俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京一起为两国关系日益密切干杯 [资料图：Pavel Byrkin/Sputnik via AP Photo]
习近平以中国为例，声称中国是“民主的”，因为中共和国家代表人民，代表人民管理国家，促进人民的意愿。中国官方媒体坚称，自由民主国家“仅仅”根据选举周期来衡量民主，忽视了人民的需求。
北京还指出，其扶贫和抗击 COVID-19 战略是政府致力于人权的例子。
“他们认为这些价值观是相对的，并在他们自己的观点中提供了更具包容性的定义，免于饥饿和免于生命恐惧的自由被视为更基本的人权的例子，”莫说。
现代对人权的理解可以追溯到《世界人权宣言》（UDHR），其中详细列出了一系列基本权利和自由，这些权利和自由被视为固有的、不可剥夺的和适用于所有人的。
这些权利在联合国成立初期通过，被载入国际体系的基础。从那时起，《世界人权宣言》催生了 70 多项人权条约，其中许多条约已由中国签署和批准。
因此，人权组织人权观察（HRW）亚洲部主任伊莱恩·皮尔森表示，试图重新解释人权和民主的语言并非一件可以掉以轻心的事情。
皮尔森告诉半岛电视台：“各国不能随心所欲地重新定义人权。”
“极权主义的朝鲜也自称朝鲜民主主义人民共和国——光说不做是不行的。”
人权观察在 2020 年警告说，北京试图在联合国内部推动变革，不仅试图重新定义既定原则，还阻碍调查和淡化对世界各地侵犯人权行为的谴责。
中国政府的努力正值国际非政府组织和联合国机构对中国侵犯基本自由和权利表示深切关注之际。
北京对这种担忧进行了反击。
去年，联合国发布了一份报告，详述了中国政府可能对西部新疆地区以穆斯林为主的维吾尔族人犯下的“反人类罪”，北京对此作出了回应。它指责美国和其他西方国家的所谓反华势力假装关心人权，并声称他们想利用维吾尔问题“破坏新疆稳定并压制中国”。
然而，联合国人权理事会 10 月份就该问题进行辩论的投票以微弱优势被否决。
投票结束后，人权组织大赦国际指责理事会未能坚持其核心使命：保护世界各地人权侵犯的受害者。
挪威国防研究所中国关系教授利塞洛特·奥德加德告诉半岛电视台：“近年来，中国政府的全球影响力不断增强，并能够将这种影响力转化为对既定国际机构的更大影响力。”
此外，北京还利用其在联合国安理会的否决权，阻止谴责缅甸军事政变的决议和声明，并阻止对朝鲜实施新的制裁，同时弃权谴责俄罗斯入侵乌克兰。
此外
在传统全球机构中拥有更大发言权的同时，北京还建立了新机构，以提升其作为国际参与者的信誉。
上海合作组织、金砖国家新开发银行（NDB）、亚洲基础设施投资银行（AIIB）和丝路基金均由中国牵头，总部设在中国，被称为联合国、世界银行和国际货币基金组织等现有全球机构的替代品。
但圣托马斯大学的叶教授表示，这些机构不应被视为北京试图取代现有的国际机构。
正如联合国的案例所显示的那样，北京也投入了相当大的精力来重塑既有的机构。与此同时，中国是联合国第二大资金捐助国，也是安理会仅有的五个拥有永久否决权的成员之一。
“我们看到北京在既有结构内部和外部开展工作，这取决于哪种方式最有利于实现他们的目标，”叶教授说。
追求中国梦
最终目标是实现中华民族的复兴，即中国梦——这是习近平主席执政初期就与他密切相关的愿景。
中国梦代表着北京寻求恢复其威望——19 世纪末和 20 世纪初帝国主义列强在“百年屈辱”中造成的损害——并在 2049 年前将中国变成一个先进的、世界领先的国家。
这包括发展中国国内事务，同时也将中华人民共和国的领土扩展到目前不受其直接控制但仍被视为中华民族不可分割的部分的地区。
这包括与印度和不丹陆地边界沿线的有争议领土、日本在东海管理的尖阁诸岛（中国称为钓鱼岛）以及文莱、马来西亚、菲律宾和越南有竞争主张的南海大部分地区。
然而，最重要的是，中国的复兴意味着与台湾统一，北京不排除使用武力实现这一目标。
当中国军队在台湾周围进行大规模演习或中国船只在南海拦截其他国家船只时，北京辩称，这些行为并没有违反中国的国际承诺，而是中国维护对理应属于中华民族的领土主权的例子。
在世界舞台上，中国政府一再谴责侵犯国家主权、外国干涉别国内政和单方面使用经济制裁的行为。
但与此同时，它保留无视与其相悖的国际裁决的权利——例如 2016 年国际法庭裁定其对南海的历史性主张“没有法律依据”——并对那些被认为阻碍北京实现民族复兴的人采取行动。
2021 年，立陶宛允许在维尔纽斯开设“台湾代表处”，而不是通常的“台北经济文化办事处”，这让北京大为恼火。立陶宛认为这种命名惯例是在鼓励台湾独立，因此对这个波罗的海国家实施了严厉的经济制裁。
这是一个模式窗口。
但即使北京宣称自己和其他国家“不干涉”，它自己也被指控干涉国外事务。
在加拿大，一份泄露的情报报告于 5 月初披露，据称中国当局在一名加拿大议员及其家人在香港发起一项成功的议案后，参与了一场恐吓活动，该议案宣布中国对维吾尔族人的待遇是种族灭绝。
此前，加拿大情报泄露事件导致有人指控北京试图干涉 2019 年和 2021 年的加拿大大选，以确保反北京候选人落败。
中国外交人员还被指控干涉丹麦选举，而英国第二大城市曼彻斯特的领事人员被指控使用暴力扰乱中国领事馆外的示威活动。
在所有这些案件中，中国官员都否认参与任何形式的干预，而是声称有“隐藏议程”的势力在“编造谎言”来“抹黑”中国。与此同时，中国政府表示，它保留捍卫主权和打击那些试图干涉中国内政的人的权利。
据称，习近平去年在与美国总统拜登的电话中谈到美国与台湾的接触时说：“玩火者自焚。”
Living the 'Chinese Dream' Beijing's new world order
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/6/living-the-chinese-dream-beijings-new-world-order
As Beijing boosts its diplomatic clout, analysts say it wants to “remould” and even supplant existing global institutions.
XI Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, on the red carpet at the bottom of the steps outside the Great Hall of the People. There are three soldiers in ceremonial dress half way up the steps behind them.
China's President Xi Jinping has stepped up diplomacy since the removal of COVID-19 curbs last year [File: Thomas Peter/Pool via Reuters]
By Frederik Kelter 6 Jun 2023
Ever since China abandoned its zero-COVID policy at the end of last year, Beijing has been involved in a flurry of engagements from East to West.
A summit in India’s Goa, military drills in Singapore and South Africa, visits by the German chancellor and the French president as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s own visits to Russia and Saudi Arabia are just a few examples of Beijing’s recent whirlwind diplomacy.
Long gone are the days when China was an isolated loner or the Chinese government seemed satisfied with observing world affairs quietly from the sidelines. Now, Beijing is reaching for the diplomatic status that matches its position as the world’s second-biggest economy.
In a speech at a United Nations conference held to mark the 50-year anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s joining the UN, Xi addressed China’s diplomatic rise and spoke of Beijing’s commitment to a world order defined by the pursuit of peace, democracy and human rights as well as the rejection of unilateralism, foreign interference and power politics.
In mid-March, at a so-called dialogue meeting between global political parties in Beijing, Xi reinforced his commitment to the same principles.
In his keynote speech, Xi introduced the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) as a way of formalising these principles with the added purpose of encouraging countries to “fully harness the relevance of their histories and cultures” and “appreciate the perceptions of values by different civilizations and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others”.
With the previously proposed Global Development Initiative (GDI) and Global Security Initiative (GSI), the GCI appears to encapsulate – although in amorphous terms – much of the Chinese president’s overall vision for a new international order.
Yao Yuan Yeh teaches Chinese Studies at the University of St Thomas in the United States. According to him, such an order would partly supplant and partly remould the international system into a new set of structures that better align with the worldview of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“It would be a world order that does not constrain communist China but contributes to its rise,” he said.
While leaders from Mongolia, Serbia and South Africa were invited to both events, the US summit mostly included traditional Washington allies, while the gathering in Beijing included leaders from Kazakhstan, Russia, Sudan and Venezuela.
The Chinese leadership and state media portrayed the CCP’s dialogue meeting as part of China’s vision of embracing countries across the world, which includes maintaining or even deepening diplomatic contact with nations like Russia and Myanmar.
The Chinese government’s willingness to engage with a variety of world actors has indeed been on display in recent months.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang reads a letter from Xi Jinping at the Chinese Modernization and the World Forum in Shanghai in April [File: Ng Han Guan/AP Photo]
Chinese diplomacy played a role in the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March. Also in March, the Chinese foreign minister visited Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, while Xi travelled to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In April, Xi held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and, last month, his envoy attempted to build support for a Beijing-led plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing has also been mentioned as a potential peace broker in conflict-ravaged Sudan.
Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, says the Chinese approach to international relations is defined by a live-and-let-live mindset.
“It is less defined by shared values and more defined by a shared future,” he told Al Jazeera.
That means that while Western countries sometimes condition interactions and cooperation on adherence to a set of values, China wants to base its engagements on the potential for development and future benefits, Mok said.
The policy largely follows a CCP conviction that development and prosperity do not have to lead to adopting these – so-called Western – values. The Chinese leadership has frequently criticised “certain countries” for supposedly imposing their principles onto others and lacking respect for the ways non-Western nations with different cultures and traditions run their affairs.
Beijing’s world order would be defined by multipolarity, according to Mok, who says China has no plan to be a dominant power.
“I don’t see a change in the world order being a case of a new boss simply replacing the old boss.”
Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin toasted an ever-closer relationship between their two countries when Xi travelled to Moscow in March [File: Pavel Byrkin/Sputnik via AP Photo]
Using China as an example, Xi has claimed that China is “democratic” because the CCP and the state represent the people and run the country on behalf of the people to promote the will of the people. Chinese state media have insisted that liberal democracies neglect the needs of the people by measuring democracy “only” on the basis of electoral cycles.
Beijing also points to its poverty alleviation and strategy against COVID-19 as examples of the government’s commitment to human rights.
“They see these values as more relative terms and have in their own view provided a more inclusive definition of them with freedom from hunger and freedom from fear for your life being seen as examples of more basic human rights,” Mok said.
The modern understanding of human rights can be traced back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which details a set of basic rights and freedoms seen as inherent, inalienable and applicable to all people.
Adopted in the early years of the UN, the rights were enshrined into the foundation of the international system. Since then, more than 70 human rights treaties have sprouted from the UDHR, many of which have been signed and ratified by China.
Trying to reinterpret the language on human rights and democracy is therefore not something to be taken lightly, according to Elaine Pearson, the director of the Asia division of the rights organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“Totalitarian North Korea also calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea – simply saying something doesn’t make it true.”
HRW warned in 2020 that Beijing was trying to bring about change within the UN, not only by trying to redefine established principles but also by hampering investigations and diluting condemnations of human rights abuses around the world.
Its efforts come at a time when international NGOs and UN bodies have expressed deep concern about the violation of basic freedoms and rights in China.
Beijing has fired back at such concerns.
A vote in October at the UN’s Human Rights Council to debate the issue, however, was narrowly defeated.
Following the vote, human rights group Amnesty International accused the council of failing to uphold its core mission: protecting the victims of human rights violations everywhere.
“The Chinese government has gained more global influence in recent years and has been able to turn that influence into a greater sway at established international institutions,” Liselotte Odgaard, a professor of China Relations at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, told Al Jazeera.
Additionally, Beijing has used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block resolutions and statements condemning the military coup in Myanmar and hinder new sanctions on North Korea, while abstaining from condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund have all been spearheaded by China, have headquarters in China and have been called alternatives to established global institutions such as the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
But they should not necessarily be seen as an attempt by Beijing to replace existing international institutions, according to St Thomas’s Yeh.
As UN cases show, Beijing has channelled considerable effort into reshaping established institutions as well. At the same time, China is the second-biggest donor of funds to the UN and one of only five members of the security council with permanent veto powers.
“We are seeing Beijing working both inside and outside established structures, depending on what is most conducive to their goals,” said Yeh.
The Chinese Dream represents Beijing’s quest to regain its prestige – damaged in the ‘Century of Humiliation’ by the imperial powers in the late 19th and early 20th century – and turn China into an advanced, world-leading nation by 2049.
This includes developing China internally but also expanding the territory under the PRC into areas currently beyond its direct control that are nonetheless considered inalienable parts of the Chinese nation.
This includes disputed territory along the land border with India and Bhutan, the Senkaku islands (that China calls Diaoyudao) administered by Japan in the East China Sea as well as most of the South China Sea where Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have rival claims.
Above all else, however, China’s rejuvenation means unification with Taiwan and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this goal.
When the Chinese military conducts large-scale exercises around Taiwan or when Chinese vessels intercept ships from other countries in the South China Sea, Beijing argues these are not breaches of China’s international pledges but examples of China upholding sovereignty over territory that rightfully belongs to the Chinese nation.
On the world stage, the Chinese government has repeatedly condemned violations of national sovereignty, foreign interference in other nations’ affairs and the unilateral use of economic sanctions.
But at the same time, it reserves the right to look past international rulings that go against it – such as the 2016 international court ruling that its historic claim to the South China Sea had “no legal basis” – and take action against those perceived to stand between Beijing and its path towards national rejuvenation.
When Lithuania in 2021 allowed the opening of a “Taiwan Representative Office” rather than the usual “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” in Vilnius, Beijing was furious. Seeing such a naming convention as encouraging Taiwanese independence, it imposed severe economic sanctions on the Baltic state.
Chinese diplomatic staff have also been accused of election interference in Denmark, while consular staff in Manchester, England’s second-biggest city, were accused of employing physical violence to disrupt a demonstration outside the Chinese consulate.
In all these cases, Chinese officials have denied engaging in any sort of tampering, claiming instead that forces with “hidden agendas” were “fabricating lies” to “smear” China. At the same time, the Chinese government says it reserves the right to defend its sovereignty and act against those that attempt to interfere in China’s domestic matters.
As Xi allegedly told US President Biden regarding US engagement with Taiwan during a phone call last year: “Those that play with fire get burned.”
A summit in India’s Goa, military drills in Singapore and South Africa, visits by the German chancellor and the French president as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s own visits to Russia and Saudi Arabia are just a few examples of Beijing’s recent whirlwind diplomacy.
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Long gone are the days when China was an isolated loner or the Chinese government seemed satisfied with observing world affairs quietly from the sidelines. Now, Beijing is reaching for the diplomatic status that matches its position as the world’s second-biggest economy.
In a speech at a United Nations conference held to mark the 50-year anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s joining the UN, Xi addressed China’s diplomatic rise and spoke of Beijing’s commitment to a world order defined by the pursuit of peace, democracy and human rights as well as the rejection of unilateralism, foreign interference and power politics.
In mid-March, at a so-called dialogue meeting between global political parties in Beijing, Xi reinforced his commitment to the same principles.
In his keynote speech, Xi introduced the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) as a way of formalising these principles with the added purpose of encouraging countries to “fully harness the relevance of their histories and cultures” and “appreciate the perceptions of values by different civilizations and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others”.
With the previously proposed Global Development Initiative (GDI) and Global Security Initiative (GSI), the GCI appears to encapsulate – although in amorphous terms – much of the Chinese president’s overall vision for a new international order.
Yao Yuan Yeh teaches Chinese Studies at the University of St Thomas in the United States. According to him, such an order would partly supplant and partly remould the international system into a new set of structures that better align with the worldview of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“It would be a world order that does not constrain communist China but contributes to its rise,” he said.
An alternative narrative
The purpose of the dialogue meeting in March was, to some extent, to act as a Chinese counterpart to the Summit for Democracy that the United States held for a second time that month as part of an effort to rally the world’s democracies.While leaders from Mongolia, Serbia and South Africa were invited to both events, the US summit mostly included traditional Washington allies, while the gathering in Beijing included leaders from Kazakhstan, Russia, Sudan and Venezuela.
The Chinese leadership and state media portrayed the CCP’s dialogue meeting as part of China’s vision of embracing countries across the world, which includes maintaining or even deepening diplomatic contact with nations like Russia and Myanmar.
The Chinese government’s willingness to engage with a variety of world actors has indeed been on display in recent months.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang reads a letter from Xi Jinping at the Chinese Modernization and the World Forum in Shanghai in April [File: Ng Han Guan/AP Photo]
Chinese diplomacy played a role in the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March. Also in March, the Chinese foreign minister visited Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, while Xi travelled to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In April, Xi held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and, last month, his envoy attempted to build support for a Beijing-led plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing has also been mentioned as a potential peace broker in conflict-ravaged Sudan.
Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, says the Chinese approach to international relations is defined by a live-and-let-live mindset.
“It is less defined by shared values and more defined by a shared future,” he told Al Jazeera.
That means that while Western countries sometimes condition interactions and cooperation on adherence to a set of values, China wants to base its engagements on the potential for development and future benefits, Mok said.
The policy largely follows a CCP conviction that development and prosperity do not have to lead to adopting these – so-called Western – values. The Chinese leadership has frequently criticised “certain countries” for supposedly imposing their principles onto others and lacking respect for the ways non-Western nations with different cultures and traditions run their affairs.
Beijing’s world order would be defined by multipolarity, according to Mok, who says China has no plan to be a dominant power.
“I don’t see a change in the world order being a case of a new boss simply replacing the old boss.”
Reconfiguring the existing world order
Although the Chinese leadership regularly opposes the imposition of Western values, this does not mean Beijing wants to discard democracy, human rights and the rule of law on the global stage, according to the Chinese government.Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin toasted an ever-closer relationship between their two countries when Xi travelled to Moscow in March [File: Pavel Byrkin/Sputnik via AP Photo]
Using China as an example, Xi has claimed that China is “democratic” because the CCP and the state represent the people and run the country on behalf of the people to promote the will of the people. Chinese state media have insisted that liberal democracies neglect the needs of the people by measuring democracy “only” on the basis of electoral cycles.
Beijing also points to its poverty alleviation and strategy against COVID-19 as examples of the government’s commitment to human rights.
“They see these values as more relative terms and have in their own view provided a more inclusive definition of them with freedom from hunger and freedom from fear for your life being seen as examples of more basic human rights,” Mok said.
The modern understanding of human rights can be traced back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which details a set of basic rights and freedoms seen as inherent, inalienable and applicable to all people.
Adopted in the early years of the UN, the rights were enshrined into the foundation of the international system. Since then, more than 70 human rights treaties have sprouted from the UDHR, many of which have been signed and ratified by China.
Trying to reinterpret the language on human rights and democracy is therefore not something to be taken lightly, according to Elaine Pearson, the director of the Asia division of the rights organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“It is not up to individual states to redefine human rights as they like,” Pearson told Al Jazeera.
HRW warned in 2020 that Beijing was trying to bring about change within the UN, not only by trying to redefine established principles but also by hampering investigations and diluting condemnations of human rights abuses around the world.
Its efforts come at a time when international NGOs and UN bodies have expressed deep concern about the violation of basic freedoms and rights in China.
Beijing has fired back at such concerns.
When a UN report was released last year detailing possible “crimes against humanity” by the Chinese state against the mostly Muslim Uighurs in the far western Xinjiang region, Beijing responded with a report of its own. It accused alleged anti-China forces in the US and other Western countries of feigning concern for human rights and claimed they wanted to use the Uighur issue to “destabilise Xinjiang and suppress China”.
Following the vote, human rights group Amnesty International accused the council of failing to uphold its core mission: protecting the victims of human rights violations everywhere.
“The Chinese government has gained more global influence in recent years and has been able to turn that influence into a greater sway at established international institutions,” Liselotte Odgaard, a professor of China Relations at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, told Al Jazeera.
Additionally, Beijing has used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block resolutions and statements condemning the military coup in Myanmar and hinder new sanctions on North Korea, while abstaining from condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Besides developing a greater say in traditional global institutions, Beijing has also founded new institutions to further its credibility as an international player.
But they should not necessarily be seen as an attempt by Beijing to replace existing international institutions, according to St Thomas’s Yeh.
As UN cases show, Beijing has channelled considerable effort into reshaping established institutions as well. At the same time, China is the second-biggest donor of funds to the UN and one of only five members of the security council with permanent veto powers.
“We are seeing Beijing working both inside and outside established structures, depending on what is most conducive to their goals,” said Yeh.
Pursuing the Chinese Dream
The ultimate goal is achieving the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation also known as the Chinese Dream – a vision closely associated with President Xi since his early days in office.The Chinese Dream represents Beijing’s quest to regain its prestige – damaged in the ‘Century of Humiliation’ by the imperial powers in the late 19th and early 20th century – and turn China into an advanced, world-leading nation by 2049.
This includes developing China internally but also expanding the territory under the PRC into areas currently beyond its direct control that are nonetheless considered inalienable parts of the Chinese nation.
This includes disputed territory along the land border with India and Bhutan, the Senkaku islands (that China calls Diaoyudao) administered by Japan in the East China Sea as well as most of the South China Sea where Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have rival claims.
Above all else, however, China’s rejuvenation means unification with Taiwan and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this goal.
When the Chinese military conducts large-scale exercises around Taiwan or when Chinese vessels intercept ships from other countries in the South China Sea, Beijing argues these are not breaches of China’s international pledges but examples of China upholding sovereignty over territory that rightfully belongs to the Chinese nation.
On the world stage, the Chinese government has repeatedly condemned violations of national sovereignty, foreign interference in other nations’ affairs and the unilateral use of economic sanctions.
But at the same time, it reserves the right to look past international rulings that go against it – such as the 2016 international court ruling that its historic claim to the South China Sea had “no legal basis” – and take action against those perceived to stand between Beijing and its path towards national rejuvenation.
When Lithuania in 2021 allowed the opening of a “Taiwan Representative Office” rather than the usual “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” in Vilnius, Beijing was furious. Seeing such a naming convention as encouraging Taiwanese independence, it imposed severe economic sanctions on the Baltic state.
This is a modal window.
But even as Beijing touts “non-interference” for itself and others, it has itself been accused of engaging in interference abroad.
In Canada, a leaked intelligence report revealed in early May that Chinese authorities had allegedly been involved in an intimidation campaign against a Canadian MP and his family in Hong Kong after he sponsored a successful motion declaring the Chinese treatment of the Uighurs a genocide.
Previous Canadian intelligence leaks have led to allegations that Beijing attempted to interfere in the Canadian general elections of 2019 and 2021 to secure the defeat of anti-Beijing candidates.Chinese diplomatic staff have also been accused of election interference in Denmark, while consular staff in Manchester, England’s second-biggest city, were accused of employing physical violence to disrupt a demonstration outside the Chinese consulate.
In all these cases, Chinese officials have denied engaging in any sort of tampering, claiming instead that forces with “hidden agendas” were “fabricating lies” to “smear” China. At the same time, the Chinese government says it reserves the right to defend its sovereignty and act against those that attempt to interfere in China’s domestic matters.
As Xi allegedly told US President Biden regarding US engagement with Taiwan during a phone call last year: “Those that play with fire get burned.”
