International Organizations in Chinese Foreign Policy

Despite China's much-heralded entry into the United Nations in late 1971, a comprehensive network of linkages between China and the rest of the world was not established until the 1980s, when Beijing joined practically all important international organizations. Growing participation in international organizations, made possible by the open-door policy, has created new opportunities, payoffs, and penalties. Chinese foreign policy behavior, manifest in the various domains of global politics, follows a real, if unstated, maxi/mini principle, maximizing China's rights and minimizing China's responsibilities. It also seeks to maximize state interests and minimize normative costs by making the world of international organizations safe for the drive for modernization and status. Policy pronouncements and adjustments over time on various global issues and problems show international organizations in general and economic and functional organizations in particular to have shortened the Chinese global learning curve. The prospects of post-Tiananmen Chinese global policy remain uncertain as the old limitations have been greatly increased and the new possibilities greatly reduced.