China and the development discourse at the United Nations. Multilateralism «with Chinese characteristics»?

Transformations in China’s foreign policy in the last forty years, along with its economic growth, have been the subject of numerous analyses, which have inter alia focused on the Chinese attitude towards international organizations. The interest of international aid scholars has instead turned to the growing activism that China has been showing in this field over the past fifteen years. This is at a time when the international development cooperation landscape is rapidly changing, with the emergence of new actors – also non-state actors – and new funding instruments. Less attention instead has been paid to China’s attitude towards multilateral development cooperation, in particular within the United Nations system, although it has been the main forum for discussing and analysing development problems for over seventy years. A long-term analysis of Chinese policy in this area can contribute to a greater understanding of Chinese objectives in the Third World and, more generally, towards international organizations. It may also help explain the role that China attaches today to its multilateral development policy and also show the level of adaptation or «challenge» of the Chinese policy to the existing international order, at least in the development cooperation field. Through an analysis of Chinese policy at the UN on issues relating to development, this contribution aims to frame the current Chinese multilateral cooperation policy from a historical perspective, indicating elements of continuity and discontinuity with respect to the past.