China, India and Global Security: Deploying to UN Peacekeeping Operations and Shaping the Responsibility to Protect

Abstract

China and India are self-appointed anti-imperialist Global South leaders seeking recognition for their heritage as great states, and neither is an enthusiastic supporter of incursions on the traditional sovereignty norm that underpins global governance. At the same time, both states view the United Nations as a crucial forum for advancing interests and bolstering status, though they have taken the opportunity to modify the global security order in entirely different ways. This chapter proceeds with brief studies of two facets of the global security order. First, it addresses China and India’s peacekeeping profiles, focusing on why these states deploy and the contrasting issues that arise out of their contributions. It then analyze how China and India engaged with the responsibility to protect since the introduction of the norm in 2001, through norm institutionalization at the 2005 World Summit, and through implementation in the seminal case of the 2011 Libya crisis, when both states were at the UN Security Council. The chapter concludes with analysis of the implications for these rising states regarding global governance.