China has long been a major target of primary sanctions and more recently of secondary sanctions. Like many other states, China has begun to explore legal efforts to resist US secondary sanctions, for instance by adopting a blocking statute. Unfortunately, it appears that these legal efforts, like those of many other states, cannot make much difference in practice, although they are not meaningless. However, China is different from many other states in that it has the potential to economically or technically overtake the US. Due to its ever-growing economic power, together with its legal efforts, China is expected to be able to neutralise US secondary sanctions in the future. Going forward, China, despite its growing power, is expected to maintain its basic policy of opposing unilateral sanctions and is unlikely to impose secondary sanctions to achieve its foreign policy aims. It will continue to emphasise the principles of sovereignty equality and non-intervention in internal affairs.

This chapter espouses a hybrid approach to the Security Council’s mechanisms for maintaining international peace, looking at the interactions between politics and law. It examines how politics among great powers affect the Security Council. It describes the effect of the changing landscape of power politics on its workings both historically and in the present. The chapter investigates how the Security Council deals with novel threats, and it discusses the contributions a more powerful China may make to the Security Council and to international peace. It reflects on the Security Council’s trajectory by revisiting universal and regional approaches to the maintenance of peace. Three core arguments are presented: (i) while more legal regulations need to be explored to reduce the negative impact of power politics, any legal design must have due regard for power politics; (ii) while a universal approach should be maintained, regional arrangements should play a bigger part in the maintenance of international peace; and (iii) a more powerful China can both enable and disable the Security Council.

This chapter first demonstrates the significance of counterterrorism for China and international society and then reviews different narratives of China’s counterterrorism. It investigates China’s domestic and international counterterrorism lawmaking at the domestic and international levels. After the late 1990s, and especially after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the UN Security Council emerged at the forefront of international counterterrorism and adopted a lot of resolutions that imposed demanding obligations on UN members.The chapter examines how these UN counterterrorism resolutions are enforced in China. While many countries’ counterterrorism activities have been strongly criticized, China has encountered particularly strong criticism, and especially for its operations in Xinjiang. Finally, this chapter tries to recalibrate the relationship between counterterrorism and human rights protection, and to evaluate the implications of counterterrorism measures for human rights in China.

This chapter first gives an overview of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including its background and content. It then examines how major Western powers are responding to the BRI by proposing alternatives, thus illustrating its geopolitical and geo-economic implications. Following this, it deconstructs the legal framework of the BRI and explains the approach with which China is putting the BRI into practice. Finally, it explores what the BRI may bring about in the international legal order and the Chinese legal order. Through the prism of the BRI, this chapter will help appreciation of how China, as it becomes a leading state, exerts influence on the international order, which is experiencing a tremendous transformation.