China’s expanding engagement with the United Nations development system

As the world’s preeminent global governance institution, the United Nations (UN) has long been at the center of great power efforts to project global influence and co-shape world order. In recent years, China has visibly expanded its engagement in and with the UN. While scholarly attention has focused on how rising China engages the UN on human rights and security, academic discussions about China’s role in UN development work remain limited. It is against this backdrop that we focus on China’s expanding engagement across the UN development system. Based on insights from interviews, document analysis as well as quantitative data on funding and personnel, this paper examines how China’s position in development-related intergovernmental negotiations and its relationship with individual UN entities has evolved. As UN organizations and member states react to and position themselves towards China’s changing role, we ask whether and how these dynamics contribute to reshaping the geopolitical, institutional and normative dimensions of UN work. Conceptually rooted in International Relations thinking on power and global governance, the paper contributes to the growing literature on China’s role in multilateral organizations and debates about global power shifts in the international system.