China Engages Global Health Governance: A Stakeholder or System-Transformer?

Abstract

Through the lens of public health, in particular HIV/AIDS, this research first scrutinises China’s compliance with and resistance to the norms and rules embedded in the global health regime, and second, illustrates China’s evolving global role and its intentions for global governance. China’s response to its HIV/AIDS epidemic and its active engagement with the multilateral institutions of global health governance are attributable to both necessity and conscious design. While calling for and welcoming the involvement of multiple actors, a sine qua non for China’s continued engagement with global governance and global health governance is that they should be conducted in accordance with the principles of national sovereignty, non-intervention and territorial integrity. Overall, while China does not seek any radical transformation of the prevailing world order, its vision for the global order is not compatible with that espoused by the West which attaches much weight to liberal democratic values thereby justifying the notion and practice of humanitarian intervention. With a preference for a Westphalian model of governance, China is not a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the liberal democratic order. Beijing advocates multilateral cooperation in a pluralist ‘harmonious world’ and argues that there is no fixed universal blueprint for development. China adopts a twin strategy in its relations with the outside world. On the one hand, it seeks to defend itself from the encroachment of liberal values while maintaining friendly relations with the leading powers of the West; and on the other, to shore up the principles of national sovereignty and non-intervention as well as strengthen ties with Third World countries so as to consolidate a normative and political bulwark against liberal democratic values on the world stage.