Analysing China’s South-South cooperation discourse in the United Nations

Abstract The resurgence of South–South Cooperation (SSC) has reignited debates in International Relations about hierarchy, identity, and change in the global development order. While existing scholarship on China’s development cooperation has primarily focused on material practices and outcomes, this article examines China’s navigation through SSC as a discursive space for identity formation within multilateral institutions. Using a constructivist approach, the article analyses China’s SSC discourse at the United Nations through qualitative, inductive discourse analysis. The study draws on 112 English-language statements and speeches issued by China’s Permanent Mission to the UN from 2000 to 2024 that explicitly mention South–South cooperation. The analysis reveals that China consistently portrays SSC as a dynamic and morally legitimate framework while deliberately avoiding exact operational definitions. SSC is discursively positioned as complementary to, rather than a replacement for, North–South cooperation, thus reaffirming the historical duties of developed countries while legitimising China’s own development efforts. The findings further show that SSC functions as a foreign policy identity project through which China balances its growing material power with its ongoing self-identification as a developing country and a representative of the Global South. By emphasising discourse as a key factor in development politics, the article adds to IR debates on social construction, identity, and gradual normative change within global development governance.