It has been widely recognized that, with its rapid rise as a global power, China's approach to international law will likely have a major impact on the future trajectory of international legal order. But does China have a coherent approach to international law? What factors have shaped China's approach? How does China's approach differ from other global powers? How should we situate China's approach in competing conceptions of international legal order? These important questions have been subject to emerging academic inquiry,Footnote 1 and this book, authored by Professor Zhipeng He, Dean of Jinlin University, School of Law, and Lu Sun, a research fellow at Jilin Academy of Social Sciences, is the most recent addition.
The book prefaces two observations: first, it is a myth that international law is a neutral and universal field, instead, international law is a transnational legal field where international lawyers with different national and cultural background compete for influence and dominance; second, China's position on international affairs has not always been well articulated. The authors lament the lack of a theory of international law with Chinese characteristics, arguing that this absence is not compatible with the objective fact of China's growing economic and political influence or with China's subjective need to enhance her discursive power in the international community, and the purpose of the book is precisely to provide “a Chinese theory of international law”.
He and Sun describe China's attitude towards international law as “half believing and half doubting, respectful but estranged”, and such an attitude may be understood by taking into account traditional Chinese Confucian culture, China's bitter experience of international law from 1840 until the United Nations’ long-overdue recognition of China in 1971, the realpolitik of international law, together with an analysis of the two distinguishing features of a Chinese theory of international law: the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence initiated by China in 1953 and China's diplomatic principle of “Seeking Common Ground while Shelving Differences”. And whilst acknowledging the contribution of the constitutionalization of international law to international legal theory, the authors are deeply skeptical about its practicality in organizing the essentially horizontal international society.
Although this work refers to the privileging of Westphalian notions of state sovereignty, non-intervention regarding internal affairs, and limiting international adjudication, the unique contributions of He and Sun lie in their explaining the underlying rationale of China's approach to international law and their unrelenting focus on the two principles that China has applied in guiding her interaction with other countries. The book examines China's approach from a macro perspective using a wide variety of sources, ranging from the former Chinese paramount leader Mao Zedong's Three Worlds Theory, the South China Sea arbitral award to the Belt and Road Initiative and is essential reading for understanding how leading Chinese international law scholars conceptualize the function of international law in international society, and how and why China uses international law.
