Separating Intervention from Regime Change: China’s Diplomatic Innovations at the UN Security Council Regarding the Syria Crisis Courtney J. Fung * Abstract China’s response to the recent Syria crisis at the UN Security Council repre- sents a crucial case in China’s approach to intervention in that it breaks from China’s recent practice of becoming more permissive regarding intervention. Instead, China actively worked to ensure that a firm line was drawn to sep- arate intervention from foreign-imposed regime change. It did so by employ- ing three diplomatic innovations: exercising multiple, successive vetoes; expanding discourse to delegitimize intervention as “regime change” by Western powers; and engaging in norm-shaping of the international commu- nity’s “responsibility to protect” post-intervention. Together, these three innovations highlight China’s desire to firmly separate the intervention norm from that of regime change. Using a variety of primary sources, the article also draws insights from interviews with foreign policy elites in Beijing, New York and New Delhi. Keywords: intervention; regime change; responsibility to protect; United Nations; Syria; norms; China China’s response to the recent Syria crisis at the UN Security Council represents a new phase in China’s approach to intervention, which is broadly defined as “compromises of sovereignty by other states that are exceptional in some way.” 1 China actively intervened to ensure that a firm line against non-consen- sual intervention would be held, and in this case alone, China committed to three diplomatic innovations: casting multiple, successive veto votes; rebranding to delegitimize intervention as “regime change,” and engaging in norm-shaping of the “responsibility to protect” regarding the use of force. 2 Together, these three innovations highlight China’s desire to keep separate the intervention * Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Hong Kong. Email: cjfung@hku.hk. ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6498-6006. 1 Finnemore 2003, 9. 2 For a treatment of why China voted the way it did in the Syria crisis, which is beyond the scope of this article, see Fung 2016c. 1 © SOAS University of London, 2018 doi:10.1017/S0305741018000851 terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741018000851 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Hong Kong Libraries, on 18 Jun 2018 at 14:12:17, subject to the Cambridge Core