Conclusion

This chapter concludes this book by comparing American exceptionalism and Chinese exceptionalism in the context of the rise and fall of great powers. It agrees that all great powers, compared with other countries, are capable of advocating international law that advances their values and interests; in this sense, there is Chinese exceptionalism. More importantly, it suggests that different great powers have different exceptionalism, thereby bring about different implications on international legal order. This chapter does not purport to argue that people should have a rosy expectation for Chinese exceptionalism. In light of international context and China’s own particularities, however, it is more likely that Chinese exceptionalism can bring about new promise for international legal order, thereby balancing American exceptionalism. Therefore, Chinese exceptionalism merits serious consideration with sympathy.

Lawfare in Dispute Settlement

This chapter examines how China resolves international disputes from the unique perspective of lawfare. It reviews the concept of lawfare and then invents a normative framework for analyzing lawfare. Furthermore, it examines China’s changing policies and practice in international adjudication in the context of the rise of China and the judicialization of international law. Relying on the normative framework for analyzing lawfare, this chapter analyzes how China understands and uses international law to handle the China-Philippines SCS arbitration and the China-U.S. trade war, which are two crises that China and the entire international community face.

State Identity and Legal Policies

This chapter aims to answer the following questions: How has China’s state identity changed since the nineteenth century when the Chinese empire began to be forced to engage with the Western world, especially since the founding of the PRC in 1949 when China had begun to embrace socialist ideology and regime at odds with those in the Western world? What is China in the twenty-first century? What implications does China’s identity have on its international legal policies? How does China respond to the conventional assumption of the relationship between state identity and behaviors? And how does China seek to reduce the potential dissonance between its new identity and behavior, as well as reassure other countries that are wary about the rise of China?

Regimes

This chapter examines China’s engagement with international regimes from perspectives of both norm compliance, which is the focus of China as a rule-taker, and norm entrepreneurship, which represents a major ambition of a rising China. It does not debate too much the status quo of China’s norm compliance or norm entrepreneurship. Instead, it focuses on what methodologies China adopts to comply with its international obligations and achieves its norm entrepreneurship. In doing so, this chapter examines how China engages the regimes in relation to peace, development, human rights, and new areas as well. This chapter informs people how international law enables the rise of China, how international law contains or fails to contain the rise of China, and how China seeks to reshape international law, thereby illustrating the multiplities of interactions between international law and the rise of China.

Chinese Courts

This chapter explores the context, dynamics, methods, structure of the application of international law in Chinese courts and new roles that Chinese courts seek to play in the context of the rise of China. This chapter first discusses the implications of national courts on international rule of law and national rule of law by applying international law. It then examines the factors that are relevant to the application of international law by Chinese courts. More importantly, this chapter finds how Chinese courts, in order to enhance the rise of China, structurally apply international law, thereby showing the long-term judicial policy of China toward the application of international law. This chapter inform how national courts are organized and organize themselves to coordinate with other governmental organs to pursue public policies.

The Relevance of International Law

This chapter, from four perspectives of community, power, adjudication, and spirit, reviews the transformation of international law during the past several decades and the relevance of international law on the rise of China, thereby examining the legal and political context where China rises and showing the fundamental difference between the rise of China and the rise of great powers in the history. In light of new political and legal circumstances, international law can play a larger role in the rise of China than that to great powers in history, which may be either expected or unexpected both for China itself and international community.

Institutions

This chapter examines how China engages with international institutions and how China organizes its national institutions to enhance its rise. On the one hand, this chapter finds the typology of the Chinese approach to international institutions: outsider, partner, member, and sponsor. On the other hand, this chapter, from the perspectives of the public-public mechanism and the public-private mechanism, examines how Chinese institutions interact with each other to enhance the rise of China. This chapter not only demonstrates how China engages other countries in the era of international institutionalization at the international level, but also how China takes advantage of its own unique institutional strength to enhance its rise at the national level.

Introduction

This chapter mainly aims to introduce the research background and research structure of The Rise of China and International Law: Taking Chinese Exceptionalism Seriously. It first explains why the rise of China and, accordingly, the engagement of China and international legal order are critical for the configuration of international relations in the twenty-first century, especially for great powers like the United States, which demonstrates the academic importance of this book. Then, by examining the arguments of authorities of international relations and international law, the book shows how the perception of scholars of the rise of China, especially the relationship between the rise of China and international law, has changed in the past several decades. It also introduces the arguments of governments and leaders of China and the United States as to how international law matters to the rise of China and how international law may be used to engage the rise of China. Finally, it explains how the book is structured.