China’s ‘do-as-I-do’ paradigm: practice-based normative diplomacy in the global South

Abstract

China’s influence in the global South has both material and ideational aspects. In the era of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), material aspects include trade in goods, infrastructure-building, and imports of raw materials and energy. Ideational aspects include political influence and attempts to diffuse Chinese norms, some of which differ from those enshrined in the so-called ‘liberal international order’. This paper posits that China’s norm diffusion in the global South is attempted via practice-based normative diplomacy which includes both discursive and non-discursive practices. In theory, Chinese norms are supposed to be co-constituted by partners in a process we call ‘earning recognition’. In practice, the Chinese government expects partner countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to model their behaviour and discourse on the example set by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) without significant contestation. Our analysis demonstrates that the PRC’s normative diplomacy has achieved a degree of earned recognition and influence, in that actors in the global South have begun to alter their behaviour along the normative lines expected by Beijing rather than those enshrined in the Western-led liberal international order. However, Chinese discursive practices have not met with the same degree of recognition as non-discursive ones, leaving space for counter-initiatives from the Western powers.