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Chinese policy toward the Third World and the superpowers in the UN General Assembly 1971–1977: a voting analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Trong R. Chai
Trong R. Chai
Affiliation:
the author of Professionals in China: Conflict and Accommodation, is Associate Professor of Political Science at Medgar Evers College, City University of New York.
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Abstract

An analysis of 344 selected votes in the four major issue areas in the UN General Assembly from 1971 to 1977 examines the question whether China has fulfilled its promise to support the Third World and oppose the superpowers. The findings are: 1) China was much more favorable to the Third World than to the West in this period and more supportive of the developing nations than of the Communist bloc on all except colonial issues; 2) China voted with the Third World more often than with the Communist nations, even when colonial issues were included; 3) China was least friendly to the United States on the majority of issues and in all years; and 4) the Soviet Union was the most anti-China nation in the Communist world, and of the four permanent members of the Security Council, Soviet voting agreement with China was the third lowest on political and security issues in the overall period and was often the lowest on arms control and disarmament. Thus at least within the context of UN voting, China has succeeded in developing its pro-Third World and anti-superpower position, particularly on economic and security issues.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , Summer 1979 , pp. 391 - 403
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1979

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References

1 UN Doc. A/RES/2758(XXVI), 25 October 1971. The vote was 76–35-17–3. For a good summary of the proposals and debates in the 26th General Assembly session on the question of the restoration of rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations, see “China: Assembly Decides to Restore Its Rights to People's Republic of China,” UN Monthly Chronicle VIII (11 1971): 34–61Google Scholar; and Yearbook of the United Nations 1971 (New York: United Nations, Office of Public Information, 1974), pp. 126–137Google Scholar.

2 “At Plenary Meeting of 26th Session of U.N. General Assembly: Speech by Chiao Kuan-hua, Chairman of Delegation of People's Republic of China,” Peking Review XIV (19 11 1971): 8Google Scholar.

3 Ibid. This line of favoring the Third World and opposing the superpowers has been repeatedly emphasized in such major speeches in the Assembly as: “At 27th General Assembly Session: Chairman of Chinese Delegation Chiao Kuan-hua's Speech,” Peking Review XV (13 October 1972): 4–10; “At 28th U.N. General Assembly Session: Chairman of Chinese Delegation Chiao Kuan-hua's Speech,” Peking Review XVI (5 10 1973): 10–17Google Scholar; “At Special Session of U.N. General Assembly: Chairman of Chinese Delegation Teng Hsiao-ping's Speech,” Peking Review XVII (19 04 1974): 6–11Google Scholar; “At 29th U.N. General Assembly Session: Chairman of Chinese Delegation Chiao Kuan-hua's Speech,” Peking Review XVII (11 10 1974): 9–16Google Scholar; “At 7th Special Session of U.N. General Assembly: Speech by Chairman of the Chinese Delegation Li Chiang,” Peking Review XVIII (12 09 1975): 11–16.Google Scholar; “At U.N. General Assembly: Speech by Chiao Kuan-hua, Chairman of Chinese Delegation,” Peking Review XVIII (3 10 1975): 10–17Google Scholar; “The Chinese Government Will Continue to Carry Out Resolutely Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Line and Policies in Foreign Affairs: Speech by Chairman of the Chinese Delegation Chiao Kuan-hua at the U.N. General Assembly Session,” Peking Review XIX (15 10 1976): 12–15Google Scholar; and “U.N. General Assembly: Speech by Huang Hua, Chairman of Chinese Delegation,” Peking Review XX (7 10 1977): 31–39Google Scholar.

4 Hook, Brian, “Historical Perspectives on China's New Diplomacy,” Asian Affairs LXI (06 1974): 142Google Scholar.

5 Robinson, Thomas, “China in 1973: Renewed Leftism Threatens the ‘New Course’,” Asian Survey XIV (01 1974): 20Google Scholar. See also Kim, Samuel S., “The People's Republic of China in the United Nations: A Preliminary Analysis,” World Politics XXVI (04 1974): 299–330CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, Dick “China and the Third World,” Pacific Community VII (01 1976): 216–229Google Scholar; and Feeney, William R., “The PRC and the United Nations,” Current Scene XIV (02 1976): 1–15Google Scholar.

5 Sturua, M., “China's ‘Negative Position’ in the U.N.,” The Current Digest of the Soviet Press XXIV (4 10 1972): 5Google Scholar, translated and condensed from Izvestia, 9 September 1972.

7 See Rybakov, V., “China in the United Nations: A Barren Policy,” International Affairs (Moscow) 3 (03 1973): 48–52Google Scholar; Alexeyev, I. and Apalin, G., “Peking's Ideological Subversion,” Chinese policy in the UN 393 International Affairs (Moscow) 10 (10 1975): 44–54Google Scholar; “The Maoist Regime at a New Stage: Urgent Problems of the C.P.R.'s Domestic and Foreign Policy [Editorial],” The Current Digest of the Soviet Press XXVII (12 11 1975): 7–11Google Scholar, translated and abstracted from Kommunist, August 1975; and Apalin, G., “Peking and the ‘Third World',” International Affairs (Moscow) 3 (03 1976): 88–97Google Scholar.

8 In order to avoid any arbitrary classification of issues in the United Nations, we used the arrangement of issues and political and security sub-issues (disarmament and the Middle East) made by theU.S. Department of State in Votes at the Thirty-First Regular Session of the General Assembly (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1977)Google Scholar. This document was published every year except for the Thirty-Second Session (1977). For this session items were grouped according to the practice and guidelines previously established.

9 For the distribution of the selected votes, by issue, see Table 4.

10 In his study of bloc voting in the UN General Assembly, Arend Lijphart stated that “no attempt was made to weight any type of issue in accordance with its importance, since it is impossible to do so in a way both objective and meaningful.” Lijphart, , “The Analysis of Bloc Voting in the General Assembly: A Critique and a Proposal,” American Political Science Review LVII (12 1963): 911Google Scholar. Julius Turner also maintained that to judge the importance of each issue was “an extremely subjective task,” for the importance of an issue varied not only from person to person but also from time to time. See Turner, , Party and Constituency: Pressures on Congress (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1951), pp. 20–21Google Scholar.

11 For an excellent review of early literature on these measures, see Lijphart, , op. cit.: 902–910Google Scholar.

12 Vengroff, Richard, “Instability and Foreign Policy Behavior,” American Journal of Political Science XX (08 1976): 428–429Google Scholar.

13 Alker, Hayward R. Jr, and Russett, Bruce M., World Politics in the General Assembly (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 31Google Scholar.

14 Brams, Steven J. and O'Leary, Michael K., “An Axiomatic Model of Voting Bodies,” American Political Science Review LX1V (06ne 1970): 463Google Scholar. Wittkopf applied the Brams-O'Leary relative agreement index to his study of the relationship between foreign aid and the General Assembly votes. Wittkopf, Eugene R., “Foreign Aid and United Nations Votes: A Comparative Study,” American Political Science Review LXIII (09 1973): 868–888CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Lijphart, , op. cit.: 909–910Google Scholar. A number of studies which use similar indexes include: Dodge, Dorothy, “African Voting Cohesion in the United Nations,” Africa Report XII (10 1967): 58–59Google Scholar; Gareau, Frederick H., The Cold War, 1949–1967: A Quantitative Study, Monograph Series in World Affairs VI (Denver: Social Science Foundation and Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, 1968–1969)Google Scholar; Rowe, Edward T., “The United States, the United Nations and the Cold War,” International Organization XXV (Winter 1971): 66–67Google Scholar; Rai, Kul B., ”Foreign Policy and Voting in the United Nations General Assembly,” International Organization XXVI (09 1972): 589–594CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Harbert, Joseph R., “The Behavior of the Ministates in the United Nations, 1971–1972,” International Organization XXX (Winter 1976): 109–127CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 (113 + 114+ 115.… + 131 + 132+ 133)/21 = 123 (133 members were present and voted).

17 The ZSA value for “no” votes was computed as follows:

18 Many students of voting analysis have used a similar method to measure the degree of support for a given issue by each member of the United Nations. Alker and Russett, for example, showed how they used this method:

It was finally decided to use the ranks held by each state on a roll call. Thus “no” got the lowest rank, “abstain” a higher rank, and “yes” the highest. For example, on a roll call with ten “no” votes, 30 “abstain” votes, and 60 “yes” votes, the rank assigned to ten countries in the negative would be their average rank, 5.5. Similarly, abstentions would merit 25.5; and affirmative votes would receive a rank of 70.5. Subtracting these ranks from the average rank of all nations that are voting (50.5), and standardizing the results so that the new voting scores have a mean of zero and an average squared value of one, the “standardized ranks” that result (indicated by Zs) would be Z (Yes) = 0.80, Z (Abstain) = – 1.00, and Z (No) = –1.80.

See Russett, Alker and, op. cit., pp. 30–31Google Scholar. This approach was also described by Vincent, Jack E.: ”To make the analysis, roll calls were coded by assigning rank numbers, with ‘no’ given the lowest rank, ‘abstain’ a higher rank, and ‘yes’ the highest rank, with average rank values assigned in each case of ties. The data were then standardized.” Vincent, “Predicting Voting Patterns in the General Assembly,” American Political Science Review LXV (06 1971): 474Google Scholar. Therefore, the ZSA, which was used to measure the degree of support for China by each member on a roll call, was in effect developed from this method.

19 The mean z score rather than the mean raw score was used because the former could measure a voting agreement better than the latter. For an excellent discussion of the advantages of the average Z score over the average raw score, see Guilford, J. P., Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 515–516Google Scholar.

20 A ZSA value—not a mean ZSA value—has a statistical significance. A positive ZSA of 1.65 for country A for a roll call, for example, means that that country was among the 5 percent of countries agreeing most with China. Similarly, a negative ZSA of 1.65 for A for another vote was indicative that A was among the 5 percent disagreeing most with China. In both cases A took an extreme position. But an average ZSA for member A for these two votes would be zero, which, of course, should not be interpreted as A having taken a middle position on these two roll calls.

21 Lijphart, , op. cit.: 910Google Scholar. This view has been shared by many studies, e.g.: O'Leary, Brams and, op. cit.: 452Google Scholar; Wittkopf, , op. cit.: 875Google Scholar; Harbert, , op. cit.: 116Google Scholar; Rowe, , op. cit.: 66Google Scholar; “Human Rights Issues in the General Assembly,” Journal of Conflict Resolution XIV (12 1970): 427Google Scholar; Alpert, Eugene J. and Bernstein, Samuel J., “International Bargaining and Political Coalition: United States Foreign Aid and China's Admission to the United Nations,” Western Political Quarterly XXVII (06 1974): 318Google Scholar; and Richardson, Neil R., “Political Compliance and U.S. Trade Dominance,” American Political Science Review LXVI (12 1976): 1103–1104Google Scholar.

21 Russett, Alker and, op. cit., p. 31Google Scholar. It is interesting to note that whether “absence” is used depends largely upon the statistical techniques employed for voting analysis. When factor analysis is applied, in order to compute a correlation between two votes, each country must have a z value for a vote. By the same token, in using a correlation coefficient, it is desirable for every country to have a score for a vote. As a result, those who use these techniques would either treat “absence” as ”abstain” or assign a middle position to “absence.” Vincent, for example, also assigns a z of 0 to ”absence.” See Vincent, , op. cit.: 476Google Scholar; and “An Application of Attitude Theory to General Assembly Voting Patterns, and Some Implications,” International Organization XXVI (09 1973): 556–557Google Scholar.

23 Russett, Bruce M., “Discovering Voting Groups in the United Nations,” American Political Science Review LX (06 1966): 329Google Scholar. Other studies which equate “absence” with “abstain” include: Vengroff, , op. cit.: 428fnGoogle Scholar; and Rai, , op. cit.: 590Google Scholar.

24 Kim, , op. cit.: 316–317Google Scholar.

25 This finding confirms an assertion made by a qualitative analysis of Chinese votes in the United Nations that the PRC had supported “all initiatives taken by the Third World majority in the Assembly to enhance development programs.” Stoessinger, John G., “China and the United Nations,” in Sino-American Detente and Its Policy Implications, Hsiao, Gene T., ed. (New York: Praeger, 1974), p. 100Google Scholar.

26 The drastic change of attitude toward China was undoubtedly the result of a successful coup in Portugal led by a leftist general in April 1974.

27 Our evidence does not support Feeney's statement that “barring a dramatic shift in relations with the United States or the Soviet Union, Peking will no doubt continue to rail against the 'superpowers’ but with a decidedly more pronounced anti-Soviet bias.” Feeney, , op. cit.: 15Google Scholar;italics added.

28 This is another confirmation of a non-quantitative descripticjn of Chinese voting behavior in the Assembly that “the USSR and the PRC are in essential agreement on the question of colonialism.” Feeney, William R., “Sino-Soviet Competition in the United Nations,” Asian Survey XVIII (09 1977): 820Google Scholar.

29 Our finding also does not support Feeney's argument that on the question of the Middle East ”the PRC position became comparatively more anti-Soviet if not less anti-American.” William R. Feeney, “The Participation of the PRC in the United Nations,” in Hsiao, , op. cit., p. 114Google Scholar. See also Feeney, , “The PRC and the United Nations”: 11Google Scholar.

30 The primary reason for Chinese opposition to arms control and disarmament was that these measures would have frozen China's nuclear inferiority vis-a-vis the superpowers and endangered its national security as a result. See Stoessinger, , op. cit.: 100Google Scholar; and Feeney, , op. cit.: 111Google Scholar.

31 The Chinese position on the question of disarmament was persistently radical (see the speeches in note 3). For example, in 1977 Huang HuaTchairman of the Chinese delegation, stated:

We have consistently stood for the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons. As the first step, all nuclear countries, and particularly the two nuclear superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, must first of all undertake the unequivocal obligation that they will not be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time and in any circumstances, and in particular will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries and nuclear-free zones, and that they must dismantle all their nuclear bases on the territories of other countries and withdraw from abroad all their nuclear armed forces and nuclear weapons.

”U.N. General Assembly…,” Peking Review XX (7 10 1977): 39Google Scholar.