Evaluate whether China seeks to overturn, reform or uphold the existing international order

What this dot point is asking

SEAB wants you to evaluate whether a rising China seeks to overturn the existing international order, to reform it, or to uphold it. The key analytical move is to reject a single label and instead assess China's stance issue by issue, because it behaves differently across the economic, institutional, normative and security dimensions of the order. You should weigh the "revisionist" reading (China as a challenger) against the "status-quo" reading (China as a beneficiary and defender), and arrive at a nuanced position. Your judgement should determine the sense in which China is, and is not, a revisionist power, and what kind of order it is actually working toward.

The answer

The question and the two readings

As China has risen, a central debate has emerged about its intentions toward the international order, the rules, institutions and norms, largely built by the West and led by the United States after 1945. Two readings compete. The "revisionist" reading holds that China is a dissatisfied challenger seeking to overturn or fundamentally reshape the order to its own advantage, displacing the United States and remaking the system in an authoritarian, China-centred image. The "status-quo" reading holds that China is a beneficiary of the existing order that rose within it and has a strong interest in preserving it, especially the open global economy. The strongest answers test both against China's actual behaviour, which varies by dimension.

Where China upholds the order

In important respects China defends the existing order, because it has benefited enormously from it. China's rise was built on the open global trading system: it integrated into world markets, joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and became the world's largest trading nation. It therefore has a powerful interest in the stability of the global economy and the free flow of trade and investment, and it presents itself, especially when Western states turn protectionist, as a defender of globalisation and multilateralism. China is also a member and increasingly active participant in the major international institutions, the United Nations and its bodies, and it affirms support for the UN-centred system. On the economic and institutional framework that has served it, China is largely status-quo.

Where China seeks to reform the order

In other respects China is a reformer, seeking to change the order from within rather than to defend it unaltered. It has pushed for greater voice and weight for itself and other developing countries in global institutions, reflecting its view that the existing distribution of power and rules over-represents the West. Where it cannot get the influence it wants within existing bodies, it has built alternatives: new China-led or China-backed development institutions and financing arrangements that expand its influence and offer non-Western options. And it promotes "multipolarity", a world of several major powers rather than American dominance, as its preferred structure. This is revisionism in the sense of reshaping the rules, the leadership and the balance of the order, not of destroying it.

Where China challenges the order's norms

The sharpest revisionist edge concerns norms and values. China rejects key liberal norms that the Western-led order has promoted, above all on human rights, democracy and humanitarian intervention. It champions an alternative emphasis on absolute state sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs, and resists external scrutiny of its political system. In effect it seeks to make the world "safe for authoritarianism" by weakening the universalist, liberal-democratic component of the order. On the normative dimension, and in its assertive approach to regional security (the South China Sea, Taiwan), China most clearly challenges the existing order rather than upholding it.

Why a single label misleads

The crucial analytical point is that no single label, "revisionist" or "status-quo", captures China's stance, because China behaves differently across dimensions. It is status-quo on trade and the open economy that made it rich; reformist on global governance, seeking more influence and building parallel institutions; and revisionist on norms and regional security, rejecting liberal values and asserting its claims. The reason is straightforward: China supports the parts of the order that serve its interests and challenges the parts that constrain it. Asking whether China is "for" or "against" the order therefore poses a false choice; the right question is which parts, and why.

Weighing the verdict

The most accurate judgement is that China is a "selective" or "partial" revisionist. It does not seek to overturn the international order wholesale, it is too deeply invested in the global economy for that, but nor does it simply uphold the order as it is. It works within and defends the system where it benefits, while seeking to reform its rules and institutions and to dilute Western, especially American, dominance, and it challenges the order's liberal norms most directly. The order China is working toward is therefore not the destruction of the current system but a more multipolar, less Western-led, less liberal version of it, one in which China has greater influence and its political model faces less normative pressure. China is thus a reformer and partial revisionist of the order, not its wholesale challenger.

Examples in context

Example 1. New China-led development institutions. When China judged that existing Western-dominated institutions gave it too little influence, it helped create new development banks and financing arrangements that expand its role and offer non-Western alternatives. These institutions exemplify reform-by-building: rather than overturning the order, China constructs parallel structures that increase its weight and dilute Western dominance, a concrete sign of its reformist-revisionist stance on global governance.

Example 2. The sovereignty-and-non-interference norm. In international forums China consistently champions absolute state sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs, and resists external criticism of its political system and human-rights record. This is the clearest example of China challenging the order's liberal norms: it seeks to weaken the universalist, democracy-and-rights component of the Western-led order in favour of a norm that protects authoritarian states from outside pressure, its sharpest revisionist edge.

Try this

Q1. Distinguish between a "revisionist" and a "status-quo" power. [4 marks]

• Cue. A revisionist power seeks to change or overturn the existing international order to its advantage; a status-quo power benefits from and seeks to preserve the existing order.

Q2. Explain why China defends the open global trading system. [12 marks]

• Cue. China's rise was built on integrating into world markets and joining the WTO in 2001, becoming the largest trading nation, so it depends on global economic stability and presents itself as a defender of globalisation.

Q3. "China is a selective revisionist, not a wholesale challenger of the international order." How far do you agree? [20 marks]

• Cue. Argue China is status-quo on trade, reformist on governance, and revisionist on norms and security, supporting what serves it and challenging what constrains it; judge it as seeking a less Western-led, less liberal order rather than the system's destruction.