China networking the world: a network approach of the Chinese strategies in normative shaping

Abstract

With the rise of BRICS countries, more scholarly production has emerged arguing that emerging economies are now playing significant norm-making or norm-shaping roles in world politics. However, there is still a gap in the existing literature about how rising powers promote alternative ideas, rules, and norms in an increasingly complex normative environment. In this paper, I will contribute to this debate by drawing on Daniel Flemes’s typology of foreign policy networks: mediation, advocacy, and substitution networks. From a network perspective, this paper focuses particularly on the Chinese strategy in accepting and shaping norms and rules within the different foreign policy networks in three issue areas: security, climate change, and economic cooperation. The study shows that various foreign policy networks are able to consolidate emerging powers’ roles as norm-makers in the international system while guaranteeing maximum flexibility. In addition, China plays a more prominent role in low politics such as the economic and financial areas where foreign policy networks have greater formalization, while in contrast, in high politics such as security and humanitarianism, China is less influential and involved in informal and flexible foreign policy networks.

JIANG Meijie 蒋梅杰

Doctor of Law by Universitat Pompeu Fabra