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coordination with China on the issue.” Could the influence of Western powers in the region be weakened, for the benefit of China? All these concerns come back to one issue: China’s new role within the international community. As a new – and still growing – power, some observers fear that China may soon have the ability to challenge and threaten the Western liberal model that has dominated international organizations since the end of the Cold War.
The Reality
These concerns are misplaced. First, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a high level of suspicion toward Western proposals at the international level and within the executive organs of the United Nations in particular. China seems to view the UN as a potential tool to oppose what it considers Western interventionist policies around the world, and it is clear that the Chinese government was greatly disappointed when the United States and its allies acted on their own to impose, by force, a regime change in Iraq in 2003. The frustration was even greater during the Libyan crisis that ended with the overthrow and execution of former leader Muammar Gaddafi. Indeed, from Beijing’s perspective, resolution 1973 of the United Nations seeking to impose a no-fly zone in Libya did not give any foreign power the right to intervene militarily on Libyan territory and against the Libyan regime. Beijing learned a lesson. The second element may be more important: Beijing’s stance on the Syrian crisis is consistent with China’s long-term foreign policy and its fundamental principles. The basis of Chinese foreign policy is articulated in the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, enunciated by Zhou Enlai in 1954: 1) mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity; 2) mutual non-aggression; 3) non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; 4) equality and mutual benefit; and 5) peaceful coexistence in developing diplomatic relations and economic and cultural exchanges with other countries.
Since the opening of the country under Deng Xiaoping in 1978, Chinese foreign policy can be more generally characterized as pragmatic. Pragmatism and the five principles are the key to understanding China’s response to the Syrian crisis and indeed its general approach to foreign relations. This model excludes moral or ethical arguments from the

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