Two Questions of Sovereignty: China and the Third World Countries in the United Nations General Assembly (1971–1990)

Abstract Respect for sovereignty is a hallmark norm for the coalition between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Third World/Global South countries since the latter supported the PRC to represent “China” at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Nevertheless, two questions on sovereignty can cause rupture, because states care about procedural and performative consequences at international organizations; whether or not the PRC and the other Third World country (1) mutually recognize their governments in light of the One China Policy and (2) agree on the whereabouts of sovereignty in the agenda. This paper theorizes the PRC's rhetorical strategy to juggle the two questions to pursue its national interests while keeping hold of its coalition, which is reliable in the politics of numbers at the UNGA. It hypothesizes that when the two sides experience discordance on at least one of the two questions, the PRC decides to detach its rhetoric on Third World solidarity regarding the respect for sovereignty from the context in order to avoid appearing as self-contradictory, and only emphasizes it when aligned on both points. Using original datasets on the Group of 77, the Non-Aligned Movement, and PRC recognizers, the study confirms the PRC's reliance on Third World support and the potential for dissonance over sovereignty. Archival analysis of PRC documents verifies the hypotheses. Overall, this paper academically contributes to the literature on China's rhetorical usage of the norms on sovereignty in international affairs by focusing on its Third World context and providing systematic evidence from 1971 to 1990.