Niall Duggan

China in Global Food Security Governance

The Chinese publics domestic expectation is that its state will ensure a safe and affordable supply of food. However, in doing so, China has acquired large amounts of farmland abroad which has raised concerns among many developing countries. It has been argued that land grabbing in the developing world is a form of neo-colonialism. This role of a colonial power is in conflict with Chinas historical role, which presents China as a leader of the developing world. In order to bring these role expectations into conformity with each other, China has taken a more active role in global food security governance. It has brought food security to what is becoming the core of the global governance decision-making system, the G20. Chinas historical role, together with its growing economic power, has helped to push the G20 to understand the importance of food security. This has shifted the G20s understanding of economic global governance away from the traditional fields of banking and trade regulation toward understanding the developmental-oriented economic structure.

BRICS and the Evolution of a New Agenda Within Global Governance

The rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the advance of the 2008 global financial crisis have fuelled a fresh round of debate concerning the sustainability of transatlantic norms, ideas and institutions that have dominated global governance since its foundation. Many of the bodies and organisations that help create global governance were developed between 1945 and 1980 and have been dominated by Western actors and a Western agenda. Using role theory, this chapter looks at the rise of the BRICS within the international system and the evolution of a new agenda within global governance, such as the G20, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations.

The Rise of China within Global Governance

Rather than a rising, the contemporary ascent of China can be better described as a return to the nation’s historical position as a leading political, cultural, economic, and military power. Historically, China held a position at the center of a regional power structure referred to in the West as the ‘tributary system’.1 Song Nianshen, who prefers the term zongfan, or hierarchy system, to tributary system, highlighted that the system was far more than an interstate system; it was a multilateral and multilayered system of international relations. According to Song, the state-to-state relationships within the tributary system were ‘woven into a complex, multilevel power nexus composed of interconnections among multiple political, economic, ideological, and science and technological cores and peripheries’.2 This conception of China’s position at the center of a complex, multilevel power nexus has a profound effect on China’s ontological understanding of its role within international relations and on states’ management of their interactions. Therefore, the re-emergence of China as a leading power in politics and economics produces a different ontological understanding and raises fundamental questions regarding the future of global governance: Is China attempting to regain its position at the center of global governance? Do China’s actions within the bodies and organizations that constitute global governance corroborate this view?

Diversity, Pragmatism and Convergence: China, the European Union and the Issue of Sovereignty

China and the European Union are stressing the depth and width of their maturing and comprehensive strategic partnership — at least in official statements.1 A recent power audit, however, came up with a much more sobering assessment of the current state of affairs. Highly critical of the European approach of “unconditional engagement”, the authors highlighted the strong role of national governments and their inability to produce a coherent policy towards the rising power in the Far East.2 Adding to the woes of the EU is the impact of the global financial and economic turmoil of 2008 that triggered a European sovereign debt crisis. As the EU struggled to handle the social, political and economic fallout, severe tensions within the highly integrated economic area emerged. National governments faced strong domestic expectations to show leadership. When the EU and the IMF had to step in to prevent a default of the Republic of Ireland, an outraged public decried the loss of national sovereignty, comparing Ireland and Greece with a “quasi-protectorate of the ECB, the IMF and the European Commission”,3 causing the Irish “founding fathers to turn in their graves”.4 The gap between European integration based on the deliberate transfer of sovereignty from national governments to a supranational body and public perception in the member states seemed to widen.

China’s New Intervention Policy: China’s Peacekeeping Mission to Mali

This chapter examines the expanding role of China in peacekeeping in Africa with specific reference to Mali where its first military trained peacekeeping troops operated. The author reviews the challenges arising from the weakening of the Malian state, the role of terrorism and the Libyan crisis, all part of the volatile context in which China’s deepest engagement in UN peacekeeping is taking place. Trends and experiences of the Chinese peacekeepers in Mali are suggestive of the future of Chinese peace support operations in coming years.