|
China China's Role in International Organizations
Participation in international organizations is perceived as an
important measure of a nation's prestige as well as a forum through
which a nation can influence others and gain access to aid programs
and sources of technology and information. The People's Republic
was precluded from participating actively in most mainstream
international organizations for the first two decades of its
existence because of its subordinate position in the Sino-Soviet
alliance in the 1950s and the opposition of the United States after
China's involvement in the Korean War. China repeatedly failed to
gain admission to the UN. In 1971 Beijing finally gained China's
seat when relations with the United States changed for the better.
Taipei's representatives were expelled from the UN and replaced by
Beijing's.
After becoming a member of the UN, China also joined most UNaffiliated agencies, including, by the 1980s, the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund. China's willingness, under the
policy of opening up to the outside world beginning in the late
1970s, to receive economic and technical assistance from such
agencies as the UN Development Program was a significant departure
from its previous stress on self-reliance. In 1986 China renewed
its application to regain its seat as one of the founding members
of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
By the late 1980s, China had become a member of several hundred
international and regional organizations, both those of major
significance to world affairs, including the International Atomic
Energy Agency, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and
the International Olympic Committee, and associations or societies
focused on such narrow subjects as acrobatics or the study of
seaweed. Besides providing China a forum from which to express its
views on various issues, membership in the 1970s and 1980s in
increasing numbers of international groups gave Chinese foreignaffairs personnel wider knowledge and valuable international
experience.
It is notable that by the late 1980s Beijing had not
sought formal membership in several important international
organizations representative of Third World interests: the Group of
77, the Nonaligned Movement, and the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries. Despite the emphasis China placed on Third
World relations, China's independent foreign policy and special
position as a somewhat atypical Third World nation made it seem
unlikely in the late 1980s that China would seek more than observer
status in these groups.
By the second half of the 1980s, China's participation in
international organizations reflected the two primary goals of its
independent foreign policy: furthering domestic economic
development through cooperation with the outside world and
promoting peace and stability by cultivating ties with other
nations on an equal basis. As expressed by Zhao Ziyang in a 1986
report to the National People's Congress, "China is a developing
socialist country with a population of over 1 billion. We are well
aware of our obligations and responsibilities in the world. We will
therefore continue to work hard on both fronts, domestic and
international, to push forward the socialist modernization of our
country and to make greater contributions to world peace and human
progress."
* * *
In the 1970s and 1980s, Chinese foreign policy was the subject
of numerous books and articles reflecting diverse perspectives and
disciplinary approaches. Excellent coverage includes A. Doak
Barnett's China and the Major Powers in East Asia, King C.
Chen's China and the Three Worlds (which includes many
relevant documents), Wang Gungwu's China and the World since
1949, Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang's China under
Threat, Michael B. Yahuda's China's Role in World
Affairs, and Robert C. North's The Foreign Relations of
China. Richard H. Solomon's chapter in The China Factor
covers China's relations with many countries in addition to its
primary focus on United States-China relations. China and the
World, edited by Samuel S. Kim, provides a comprehensive view
of many facets of Chinese foreign relations. Barnett's The
Making of Foreign Policy in China is a pathbreaking study of a
subject previously little understood outside China.
The following periodicals often contain informative or
analytical articles on Chinese foreign policy and relations with
specific countries or regions: Asian Survey, Asia Pacific
Community, Asiaweek, China Quarterly, Current
History, Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign
Affairs, Issues & Studies, Journal of Northeast Asian
Studies, Pacific Affairs, Problems of Communism,
Washington Quarterly, and World Today. (For further
information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of July 1987
|
