Events

• To register to attend this event in-person, please register HERE. *CU ID holders only
• To register to attend this event online, please register HERE.

China is of growing importance to the United Nations. Like other states, Beijing aims to exert influence at the world body to legitimise and disseminate its foreign policy values and interests. This talk contextualises China’s growing presence at the United Nations by examining publicly available data on four metrics that gauge Beijing’s success in shaping the body. Those metrics are: funding for UN departments, programs, and initiatives; staffing of executive-level personnel positions; voting in the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council; and the use of PRC-specific discourse and language in UN-generated documentation.

The United Nations has become progressively more reliant on China’s general contributions, and in turn China has used a combination of levers to elevate its position within the UN system. However, China is still selective in its overall approach to UN participation and that efforts by the PRC do not necessarily translate into successful influence of the United Nations.

Courtney Fung is Associate Professor in the Department of Security Studies & Criminology at Macquarie University and concurrently Associate in Research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University and Associate Fellow at the Lowy Institute. Her work focuses on how rising powers address the norms and provisions for global governance and international security, with a primary focus on China.  She is author of China and Intervention at the UN Security Council: Reconciling Status (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) that explains the effects of status on China's varied response to intervention and foreign-imposed regime change at the United Nations. 

Photo Credit: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b47500a7c9327a8adda4088/1615029260909-GTZR4MU60559EBYKT2XF/Courtney%2BFUNG_HEADSHOT.png?format=500w