Description
Although China is often assumed to be seeking to overturn US hegemony, its approach to existing international institutions varies considerably: Beijing sometimes accommodates itself to them, sometimes seeks reforms, and sometimes – though only rarely – creates new, rival institutions. This paper explains why China creates new international institutions. It deploys an original three-stage theoretical framework, tested via concise plausibility probes of each of the causal pathways and two detailed case studies of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (development finance) and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (security governance), employing process tracing and elite interviews. The paper argues that China initiates new institutions only when: (1) existing arrangements inadequately serve core interests; (2) the dual international political opportunity structure enables institutional creation (reform impossibility + creation feasibility); and (3) China possesses two required capacities (institutional and economic/military). Empirical findings confirm the framework’s explanatory power across issue areas, showing that China’s institutional choices are shaped by a dynamic interplay of structural constraints (Condition 1), strategic calculation (Condition 2), and capacity thresholds (Condition 3). The study advances realist institutionalism and policy-wisely, provides an analytical matrix to predict China’s institutional strategies across issue areas in global governance.
