Socialisation in EU-China human rights diplomacy from the diplomacy of values to the values of diplomacy

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the Human Rights Diplomacy (HRD) between the European Union (EU) and China and how it changed as a result of a two-way socialisation process. Through a conceptual inquiry, I show that in-built dilemmas of HRD legitimise two opposing beliefs in the appropriate role of values in diplomacy. A principled promotion of internal views of human rights (human rights script) or a pragmatic approach stressing the values of cooperation and peace (diplomacy script). Tracing EU-China HRD interactions in bilateral discourse and policy, I demonstrate how EU scripts have undergone a non-strategic and unintended transition in this continuum from demanding results (human rights script) to favouring cooperation with China (diplomacy script). To account for this change, I draw on interviews with diplomats, process-tracing, and document analysis to posit that the EU became ‘entrapped’ in a process-focused dialogue. This has been accompanied by a ‘foreign policy learning’ process through which the EU established a wider margin of tolerance for normative pluralism. After tactically learning to ‘speak human rights’ until 1995, I argue that China’s strategic and persistent counter-human rights diplomacy have created an environment placing the EU at the receiving end of normative influence. By showing how in engaging with China, the EU as a traditional human rights promoter modified its beliefs on appropriate HRD , I contribute to a broader literature on the impact (or the lack thereof) of Western human rights promotion in China. More broadly, in a world increasingly shaped by non-hegemonic normative relationships, this dissertation seeks to advance development of a paradigm of two-way socialisation processes to capture the dynamics of contemporary renegotiations of the role of values in diplomacy. My findings intend to stimulate rather than settle debates on whether the ‘values of diplomacy’ constitute an adequate and sufficient response to a fading Western monopoly of normative powerhood.