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China and intervention at the UN

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China and Intervention


at the UN Security Council
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China and Intervention


at the UN Security
Council
Reconciling Status

COURTNEY J. FUNG

1
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3
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For my parents
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Acknowledgements

Despite presenting a set of neat explanations and insights in the book that follows,
I must recognize that the path to publication was nowhere as logical or clear.
Indeed, I was lucky with much good fortune. At just the right time, I received a
General Research Fund grant (#17612518) from the Research Grants Council of
Hong Kong to focus on finishing this book project. My grateful thanks to the RGC
for the award.
This book grew out of my doctoral thesis, though much of that text does not
remain here. It was my time working on my dissertation at The Fletcher School of
Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, that taught me to put less weight on
academic fads and work on intellectual projects in service to a greater, practical
good. My dissertation advisors—Alan M. Wachman, Daniel W. Drezner, Ian
Johnstone, and Alastair Iain Johnston—all deserve my deepest thanks for their
patience with me and my work. It was all the unanswered questions of my
dissertation—and in particular during my oral defense, where my committee
wanted to discuss the Chinese role in addressing the unfolding Syrian civil
war—which prompted me to change my research question entirely.
I am eternally grateful that Alan took me on as a doctoral advisee, and for
always encouraging me to move on to my next phase of research (“Why wait until
everyone says it’s your turn, Courtney? If you’re ready, you should try”). Alan was
not only generous enough to offer his own peers as initial points of contact during
my first round of fieldwork in Beijing, but then followed up with individual email
messages thanking them all for their time. A decade on from my first trip, and
I still meet those who remember me as Alan’s student, given his proper attention
to detail with those thank you messages. In Alan’s own unassuming sure-
handedness, he left a very high standard for me to aspire to as a productive and
thoughtful scholar. Dan offered succinct feedback during my numerous visits with
him (“You’ve mixed up variables and observable implications. What’s the next
question?”). I hope to impart insights the way he does in a ten-minute meeting;
one day! Dan’s argumentative curiosity, clear thinking and total impatience for
half-baked work are solid reminders for why we engage in social science to begin
with. Ian’s reputation as one of the most generous, kind, and thoughtful scholars is
entirely deserved. Ian’s introduction to the Center on International Cooperation
gave me the launch pad for fieldwork, and he always made time to read my
(many) drafts and meet in person. Those of you who know Ian will be unsur-
prised; and those of you who know what a scholar-practitioner’s schedule looks
like will be rightfully impressed. I’m grateful for Ian’s mentorship to say the least.
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viii 

Iain’s work is a continual source of inspiration for me. Alan was right that while
others see the world in black and white, Iain is watching in color. Iain spent hours
discussing my Darfur case with me, and in asking probing questions about my
interview minutiae, he showed me first-hand how to actually do process-tracing.
The months (or let’s be honest here, years) spent reworking and rethinking this
single case, meant that the growing pains for the next case studies were nowhere
near as bad. I thank each of my teachers for letting me observe and learn as
I became my own independent researcher. I will always be a student in their
company, and their unanimous assumption that I would write a book was a
touchstone for me upon my departure from Boston for new responsibilities and
time pressures in Hong Kong.
A number of fellowships and visiting positions gave me respite to work on the
ideas contained here. Some of my initial fieldwork was supported by a Konosuke
Matsushita Memorial Foundation grant (#11-003), which enabled me to start data
collection. I was a research fellow in the International Security Program at the
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, under the
guidance of Steven E. Miller and Stephen M. Walt. The program provided an
intellectual environment to contemplate larger implications of my research, and
an excellent opportunity to present initial ideas to an audience skeptical that
China could be interested in such vague things as ‘status’ and ‘responsibility.’
I was a pre-doctoral research fellow at the Center on International Cooperation,
New York University, and thank Richard Gowan, Jake Sherman, and Ben Tortolani
in particular. They all nudged along my thinking and emphasized the policy
relevance of my research. I had an eye-opening summer serving in the UN
Department of Peacekeeping Operations–Policy and Best Practices Section under
the guidance of David Haeri, Roxaneh Bazergan, and Rebecca Jovin. It was there
that I truly realized that outcomes in the real world are idiosyncratic and fortuitous,
and that even apparently insignificant, private moments have ripple effects for
policy. Both Iain and Thomas J. Christensen supported me for a year-long fellow-
ship at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University through the
now Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program funded by the Carnegie
Corporation of New York. I am so grateful for that uninterrupted opportunity to
think, collect data, and write. I thank both Iain and Tom for the mentorship over the
years, and for reminding me of the importance of having work-life balance,
something not really valued in the academe. It was Tom who wisely reminded me
to work six days a week while I could still justify it, and then not to feel guilty when
other priorities prevailed. I am also glad for the CWP friendships and scholarly
network; the jolt of energy from the workshop sessions are always worth the
dreaded jetlag. Colin Wight had me as a visitor in the Department of Politics and
International Relations at the University of Sydney when I was rethinking the
research framework, and Jingdong Yuan was a generous host there too. I also
thank Young Hwan Shin of the East Asia Institute in Seoul for my fellowship in
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 ix

the Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia funded by the
Japan Foundation, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly
Exchange of Taiwan, and YBM/KIS, which gave me the valuable opportunity to
think through background ideas for the project.
Many people have supported me, in big ways and small, and without them
I wouldn’t have figured out where I was going. Thanks go to my seniors—Steve
Chan, Rosemary Foot, and Ja Ian Chong—who offered encouragement for the
project and read various drafts along the way. Thank you to Jenifer Burckett-
Picker, Lydia M. Chen, Jessica Daniels, Ann Decembrele, Noah Gall, Laurie
Hurley, Susan Lynch, Ellen McDonald, Carol Murphy, Miriam Seltzer, Sharon
To, Daniel Tsang, and May Yim for all keeping the literal and figurative trains
running on time.
At Oxford University Press, Dominic Byatt was a joy of an editor to work with,
and I am so grateful that he saw promise in this project and kept up the hunt for
reviewers. Matthew Williams and Céline Louasli ably pulled together all the
different files and kept production humming. Rob Wilkinson admirably cleaned
my text. I am indebted to all four reviewers for their comments and queries that
undoubtedly improved this book. Some initial drafts of my research were pub-
lished as journal articles. My 2018 article, “Separating Intervention From Regime
Change? China’s Diplomatic Innovations at the UN Security Council Regarding
the Syria Crisis,” The China Quarterly, 235, 693–712 is reprinted with permission
from Cambridge University Press. My 2016 article, “Global South solidarity?
China, regional organisations and intervention in the Libyan and Syrian
civil wars,” Third World Quarterly 37: 1, 33–50, is reprinted by permission of
the publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd. Copyright © Southseries Inc., www.
thirdworldquarterly.com, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd,
www.tandfonline.com on behalf of Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.
com. v1.9. My 2016 article, “Explaining China’s Deployment to UN Peacekeeping
Operations,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 16: 3, 409–41 is reprinted
by permission of Oxford University Press and the Japan Association of Inter-
national Relations. This project also benefited from a number of scholars who
gave their time to challenge my work. Thank you to the participants at seminars at
the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the National University of Singapore,
the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at the School of International
and Public Affairs at Columbia University, the China and the World Center at the
Australia National University, the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to
Protect at the University of Queensland, and the Security Studies Group at the
University of Sydney, Keio University, Peking University, Seoul National Univer-
sity, The University of Nottingham-Ningbo, and at NYU-Shanghai.
I am lucky to have a supportive research environment at the Department of
Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. Thank you to
colleagues past and present, in particular John Burns, Joseph C. W. Chan, Peter
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x 

Cheung, Yvonne Chiu, James Gledhill, Enze Han, Will Hayward, Ian Holliday,
Inwook Kim, Danny Lam, Helen Liu, Kai Quek, Uwe Steinhoff, and Injoo Sohn
for discussing different phases of the project with me. Thank you to Thomas
S. Wilkins, who was visiting faculty in the Department, for so graciously facilitat-
ing my time at the University of Sydney. Thank you to Eliza W. Y. Lee for
supporting my mini-sabbatical and to Richard W. Hu for making my application
to the RGC possible. Thanks in particular to both Joseph and Ian for their sense of
perspective on academic life and mentorship over the years. Both believed in the
value of this monograph and gave steady guidance on managing my competing
professional demands as I embarked on this multi-year project. I am indebted to
Debby S. W. Chan, Christelle Chartrand, Yudi Feng, and Shing-Hon Lam for the
yeoman’s work of research assistance. This category of tasks included ferreting
down dead-ends, chasing winding paper trails, and forever explaining software to
this tech dinosaur. In particular, Debby and Shing-Hon dealt with the brunt of my
off-the-cuff and short-notice requests, of which there were many. I am honored to
have learned from such bright, young scholars and foreign-policy practitioners.
Many colleagues, friends, and family cheered me on along the way. Thank you to
Nichole Argo Ben Itzhak, Yan Bennett, Susanna P. Campbell, Jonathan T. Chow,
Enda Curran, Leif-Eric Easley, Joe Gagliano, Nancy W. Gleason, Elke Jahns-Harms,
Tiffany Kam, Jung Eun Kim, Jeehye Kim, Alanna Krolikowski, Jada Lam, Marc
Lanteigne, Tabitha Mallory, Ben Mazzotta, Elizabeth McClintock, Bex Metcalf,
Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Jenny Powlesland, Xiaoyu Pu, Ivan W. Rasmussen, Mihaela
Papa, Tracy Richardson, Daniel Suchenski, Sarah Teitt, Marina Travayiakis Melido-
nis, and Sean Wong for all of their support. I thank Wilfred Wan in particular for
reading drafts, putting up with all of my WhatsApp messages, and for always
making the time to call and commiserate. Thank you also to Jennifer L. Erickson
for offering frank insights on the book publishing odyssey and for all of her
encouragement via email, ISA catch-ups, and skype calls. Thanks to Kei Koga for
all of his sage advice over the years (“just write it, Courtney!”) and for always setting
a pace for me to follow.
The research that follows is impossible to do without the time and observations
from the decision-makers addressing these foreign-policy crises. I am indebted to
all of my interviewees for their insights, contacts, and reflections as to how foreign
policy actually happens. Numerous cigarette breaks, coffee and tea appointments
helped me understand just how complex, tenuous, and at times fortuitous, the
work of day-to-day international relations actually is. I left many Beijing and New
York research trips thinking it was frankly a marvel that any international response
is offered at all for crises in these perennially ‘far away places.’ Thank you to each of
my interviewees for their generosity and patience with my questions, and repeated
contact throughout the years. Many interviewees not only recommended others to
call on next, but actually vouched for me to facilitate my appointments.
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 xi

Thank you to my two little loves for being the embodiment of joy and the best
form of distraction—two things that all writers need in great quantities. My real
commitment to work on this book began when my first was still teething, and
I was pregnant with our second. Never did I think I would write singing nursery
rhymes, bouncing a baby desperate to ‘help’ by jabbing at the keyboard—and
never did I think that I would find it hilarious to do so. My children, and their
curiosity, exuberance, and persistence (“I do it myself, Mama!”) have given me a
true sense of purpose about my day. My husband deserves much gratitude.
Writing is an inherently selfish task: staring into space, attempting to clear your
head, and dismissing wandering thoughts in order to type a few sentences. All of
this looks much like time-wasting to the untrained eye. My husband never once
asked if I could write faster. And he gave me the one thing I couldn’t find
anywhere else when the real crunch came: time. Time for me to think, write,
and sleep—a true luxury when you face a killer combination of writer’s block, half-
finished drafts, and a growing brood. My husband’s own curiosity and zest for life
keeps me buoyant when buffeted. I am so grateful that our stars aligned.
My deepest thanks go to my first teachers, my parents. My parents have always
encouraged me to believe in myself and to be unafraid of ‘stretch.’ They had faith
that I knew what I was doing—even as a 16-year-old choosing to move to London
to read the fuzzy stuff of International Relations. In particular, I will always be
grateful for my parents taking care of everything during my junior sabbatical, my
one precious opportunity to focus on the book’s foundation. Mom in particular
selflessly took care of me and my growing family—and kept me in good company
walking to the station and going for tea. Daddy was the first to read the whole
manuscript. Both my parents remain my most steady guides, listening to me
debate about how to proceed in work and life. I dedicate this book to my parents
with love.
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Table of Contents

List of Graphs xv
List of Tables xvii
List of Abbreviations xix

Introduction 1

I. BACKGROUND

1. Historical Overview of China and Intervention at


the UN Security Council 15
2. Chinese-Language Discourse on Regime Change 29

II. THEORY
3. Theory and Empirical Strategy 39

III. CASES
4. Status and Intervention in Darfur, Sudan 2004–2008 63
5. Status and Intervention in Libya, 2011–2012 88
6. Status and Intervention in Syria, 2011–2015 108

IV. CONCLUSION

7. Conclusion 135

Appendix: PRC Ambassadors to the United Nations, 1971–2019 149

Endnotes 151
Bibliography 225
Index 275
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List of Graphs

2.1. Chinese National Knowledge Index keyword search for “regime change”
in the core newspaper database for 2000–2015, without duplicates 30
2.2. Chinese National Knowledge Index keyword search for “regime change”
in abstracts of the academic journals database for 2000–2015,
without duplicates 30
4.1. Factiva database search of English-language sources regarding “Darfur”
and “regime change” within five words, 2004–2008, without duplicates 67
4.2. Factiva database search of English-language sources regarding “China”
and “Darfur” as headline/lead terms, 2004–2008, without duplicates 83
5.1. Factiva database search of English-language sources regarding “Libya”
and “regime change” within five words, 2000–2014, without duplicates 93
5.2. Factiva database search of English-language sources regarding “Libya”
and “regime change” within five words by month, 2011, without duplicates 93
6.1. Factiva database search of English-language sources regarding “Syria”
and “regime change” within five words, 2000–2014, without duplicates 112
6.2. Factiva database search of English-language sources regarding “Syria”
and “regime change” within five words by month, 2011–2014, without
duplicates 112
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List of Tables

1.1. China’s abstentions on sanctions-related UN Security Council resolutions


in the 1990s 23
3.1. Separating status, reputation, honor, and prestige 40
3.2. Summary of the case universe of China’s responses to intervention 57
4.1. Key UN Security Council Resolutions regarding the Darfur crisis 70
5.1. Key UN Security Council Resolutions regarding the Libya crisis 94
6.1. Key UN Security Council Resolutions regarding the Syria crisis 116
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List of Abbreviations

AMIS African Union Mission in Sudan


ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
AU African Union
CCP Chinese Communist Party
DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
EU European Union
FRY Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
GCC Gulf Cooperation Council
HIPPO High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations
ICC International Criminal Court
KFOR Kosovo Force
LAS League of Arab States
MINUGUA UN Verification Mission in Guatemala
MINUSTAH United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
MONUC UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NLD National League for Democracy
OIC Organization of Islamic Cooperation
OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
P3 P3 (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France)
PLA People’s Liberation Army
RPF Rwandan Patriotic Front
SADC Southern African Development Community
UN United Nations
UNAMET UN Mission for East Timor
UNAMID UN–AU Hybrid Mission in Darfur
UNAMIR UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda
UNFICYP UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus
UNIFIL UN Interim Force in Lebanon
UNITAF United Task Force
UNMIL United Nations Mission in Liberia
UNMIS UN Mission in Sudan
UNOSOM II United Nations Operation in Somalia II
UNPREDEP UN Preventative Deployment Force
UNPROFOR UN Protection Force
UNSC United Nations Security Council
UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution
UNSMIS UN Supervision Mission in Syria
UNTAET United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
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Introduction

China is increasingly forthright about the specter of regime change at the UN


Security Council. China was outraged with the toppling of Colonel Muammar
Gaddafi in October 2011, consistently condemning the escalation of the bombing
campaign as overstepping the UN Security Council mandate.¹ The no-fly zone and
protection of civilians mandate implementation were proof for some Chinese
officials that “Western countries have long harbored the intention of dethroning
Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi regime.”² When debating possible modes of interven-
tion into the Syria crisis, Chinese officials have often stressed that “China opposes
any externally imposed solution aimed at forcing a foreign-imposed regime
change.”³ In escalating UN Security Council sanctions against the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea, China pointedly reminded fellow Council members
“don’t seek foreign-imposed regime change; don’t incite a collapse of the regime.”⁴
Repeated statements like these belie a serious concern for China about the tensions
between regime change and UN Security Council intervention. While China has
gradually eased into accepting intervention, China remains reluctant to condone
regime change.⁵ Amongst other reasons, a leading concern for China is that being
permissive in cases of regime change could set precedent for such actions against
China, where Chinese Communist Party control and stability is arguably the most
important core interest for Beijing. As one Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
advisor plainly stated: “when we vote on Syria, we are thinking of China.”⁶
China’s concerns are driven by an awareness that the UN Security Council
could directly or indirectly address regime change: the forcible or coerced removal
of the political leadership of a state by outside actors.⁷ Broad changes in the
international system, mean that norms like protection of civilians, accountability,
and the responsibility to protect are consistently invoked to protect populations
under threat of mass abuse by their governments. No longer are UN efforts limited
to inter-state threats to international peace and security, but include addressing
internal threats like genocide, ethnic cleansing, and state failure, for example.
Scholars wryly observe that in the post-Cold War era, a much more targeted use of
force against senior government officials, as opposed to whole states, would have
saved much blood and treasure.⁸ In an era where states themselves deliberately
abuse their populations, often with the direction and support of senior govern-
ment officials, the UN Security Council has authorized resolutions that funda-
mentally challenge government leadership structures in order to address the mass
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2        

human rights abuse at hand, rather than assuming the host state government as a
partner in resolution.⁹ For example, International Criminal Court referrals for
Sudan and Libya led to the indictments of both states’ leaders;¹⁰ peace enforce-
ment missions in the case of Côte d’Ivoire gave way to UN helicopters firing on
government military installations and the presidential palace where the incum-
bent was sequestered to enforce a transfer of power to the newly-elected head of
state.¹¹ Such interventions mean to apply pressure on the regime, leading to a
blurring of regime change and UN-led intervention.¹²
Given this evolving normative context, this book is primarily interested in cases
of non-consensual intervention in cases of mass atrocities perpetrated by or with
tacit support of the state. Cases without host state consent mean that the UN
Security Council must coerce the state that is perpetrating the mass abuse through
a violation of state sovereignty, which is a core principle for China.¹³ This
definition draws from the humanitarian intervention literature, though I do not
concentrate on military means as the only tool for coercive intervention against
the state.¹⁴ In these cases of non-consensual intervention, I focus on activities and
the threat of activities under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to include sanctions
(diplomatic and economic), legal measures (International Criminal Court country
case referrals) and the use of military force (peacekeeping operations and no-fly
zone enforcement, for example)—all of which do not require host state consent.¹⁵
As scholars note, the use of this variety of military and non-military tools
represent a “compromise of sovereignty . . . that are exceptional in some way,”¹⁶
disrupting the “conventional pattern of international relations.”¹⁷
In contemporary international affairs, “responsible” members of the inter-
national community display a commitment to protecting collective goods like
human rights, non-proliferation, development, and climate management.¹⁸ These
activity areas and their attenuating regulations and norms are recognized as
legitimate by members in international society, and therefore, states that engage
in these practices also have standing of good international citizenship.¹⁹ The
norms of accountability,²⁰ the responsibility to protect,²¹ and protection of civil-
ians challenge sovereignty boundaries in privileging peoples’ rights—even in the
face of their state—and by implication holding states and their leaders responsible
for mass abuse. Although China may be reluctant to support norms challenging
sovereignty, China is conscious that it cannot dismiss them altogether. Even if
these norms are not fully internalized, states may still comply with these norma-
tive standards in order to reduce social opprobrium and maximize social benefits
from their peers (praise, recognition and prestige, for example).²² Although China
may be more engaged with the intervention regime and displaying a deepening
commitment to its international responsibilities, China is still reluctant to pro-
mote activities, like regime change, that are antithetical to state sovereignty.
Chinese officials are keenly aware that regime change can occur via a “Trojan
horse” of intervention: when apparently legitimate requests for intervention push
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 3

through regime change on the sly.²³ As one Chinese official noted: “regime change
in Libya left [us] with this feeling that . . . we had been fooled.”²⁴ UN Security
Council-authorized resolutions were used as stepping stones to remove Gaddafi.
Interviews reveal that potential cases of intervention with a surrounding public
discourse presenting regime change as a viable policy choice are some of the most
difficult crises for China to address at the UN Security Council, as China does not
want to condone or support regime change via UN efforts.²⁵ Discourse, and the
narratives that follow, make some facts appear as more relevant than others.²⁶
Discourse “work to define and to enable, and also to silence and exclude, for
example by limiting and restricting authorities to some groups, but not to others,
endorsing a certain common sense, but making other modes of categorizing and
judging meaningless, impractical, inadequate or otherwise disqualified.”²⁷ Public
discourse calling for regime change—whether implying that regime change is
“inevitable” given the arc of the crisis, or framing it as “necessary” in order to
resolve the crisis—present regime change as a viable and logical goal in the context
of debates about how to intervene in a particular crisis.²⁸ Public discourse helps
create a policy window, when decisionmakers can switch policy tracks at much
lower costs—away from tolerating or accepting heads of state to pursuing debates
about forcibly removing them.²⁹ To be clear, my emphasis on public discourse as
an element of contextual constructivism is not to say that material conditions do
not matter, or that ideas and narratives always matter. I want to emphasize that
social constructions by way of public discourse of regime change matter when
embedded in wider material conditions. This occurs when a host state appears
“ripe” for regime change (i.e. when the head of state directs or supports mass
human rights abuse). And although regime change may not actively be discussed
on the UN agenda in regards to the host state—a logical choice given China’s
veto—these dominant narratives cast long shadows on actual live negotiations for
intervention in the host state.³⁰ As one advisor to the PRC Ministry of Foreign
Affairs noted, “talking heads in Washington and London are important for what
we achieve in [UN Security Council deliberations in] New York . . . it’s not just
noise.”³¹ It is not the case that public discourse supersedes discussions in cham-
bers,³² but that public discourse represents a signal that regime change could end
up a distinct possibility for the host state—even if this is not part of the negotiating
agenda amongst the UN Security Council.³³

The Puzzle

Despite a repeated commitment to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and


repetitions for intervention under UN Security Council authorization, host state
consent, and regional support, China’s record on intervention is fundamentally
inconsistent, driven by a pragmatic weighing of principles versus national interests.
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China now has a much more diversified position on intervention, voting for robust
peace enforcement missions,³⁴ committing combat troops on mission,³⁵ and is
actively engaging in the discourse regarding the responsibility to protect.³⁶ Yet even
with China’s repeated discontent regarding regime change, China has varied its
response to UN Security Council intervention in the trinity of post-September 11
cases where heads of state have been marked for dispatch. Advocates asserted that
“regime change alone can end genocide as the domestic security policy of choice in
Sudan”;³⁷ that the United Nations must “ensure the ouster of Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi,”³⁸ and that Bashar al-Assad of Syria was a “‘dead man
walking’.”³⁹ However, despite the robust public discourse in these cases identifying
these strongmen for dispatch, China acquiesced to an International Criminal Court
referral for Sudan in 2005 and largely supported intervention into Darfur by way of
a Chapter VII peace operation; supported an International Criminal Court referral
and acquiesced to a no-fly zone in the Libya case in 2011, but halted any interven-
tions into the Syria crisis, issuing repeated vetoes since 2011.
China’s record of responses regarding intervention cannot be robustly explained
by existing theory. If realist theories guide decision-making, then one would expect
vetoes in the cases of Sudan and Libya, where China had the most significant
financial investments and close political ties with both leaders. Yet, these were the
cases where China either permitted or actually supported intervention. If liberal
theories guide China’s decision-making, then one would expect that the United
Nations institutional setting would clarify information, reduce transaction costs,
and identify focal points so as to modify China’s preferences to comply with
emerging norms regarding accountability for massive human rights abuses, motiv-
ating China to cast at least abstention votes consistently across all these cases.⁴⁰ Yet
China has cast votes in all the different voting categories, including multiple vetoes
in relation to the Syria crisis. The Chinese foreign policy literature offers few
insights. China did not support intervention into all three crises in the face of US
pressure to do so,⁴¹ nor is this a straight-forward story of learning or adaptation—
despite the realization that China had enabled regime change in the case of Libya,
China contended with difficulties in casting its Syria vetoes.⁴² Fundamentally,
China’s range of responses is inconsistent with rational security-maximizing cal-
culations. As these explanations fall short, we are left with a puzzle: for a state so
reluctant to condone intervention—especially in the extreme of cases identified in
the public discourse as targets for regime change—what explains China’s response
to intervention at the UN Security Council?

Argument in Brief

This book argues that status is an overlooked determinant in understanding the


variation in China’s position on intervention at the UN Security Council. I start
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with the unoriginal assumption that states are rational actors in a social context.⁴³
The desire to take actions that comply with status, and related social factors like
self-image and identity, can mean that states select policy options even if it means
bearing material costs.⁴⁴ Status—a state’s “standing or rank in a status commu-
nity”⁴⁵—can have independent and significant effects for China’s position on
intervention. Status can shape China’s response to intervention by way of China’s
peer groups. Under certain conditions, China’s peer groups are able to modify
China’s preferences, even getting China to permit action. China’s pursuit of status
is in part driven by a consequentialist calculation to maximize China’s standing as
a group member, but it is also inherently social, with China driven by a logic of
appropriateness and a desire to conform to an intersubjective standard of good
behavior as a member of the peer group. To this extent, status is causal (i.e.
external to actors) and constitutive (i.e. part of who actors are). I draw upon the
status and Chinese foreign policy literatures, using a constructivist lens in so far
that this approach unpacks aspects of international life that are taken as natural,
given or embedded, allowing me to probe agency and social constructs.⁴⁶ Status
highlights the connection between social and strategic drivers in foreign policy
decision-making, as states’ actions are framed by a normative context. By better
understanding the impact and scope conditions of status we can answer funda-
mental questions of why China took certain positions regarding intervention and
how these positions were justified. Therefore, the book is guided by a secondary
research question, how does status affect China’s response to intervention at the
UN Security Council?
Though China’s focus on status is not a new proposition,⁴⁷ this book offers
greater analytical purchase on two grounds. First, I show that China is not
motivated by a singular status concern by unpacking the effects of China’s twin
statuses as both a great power and as a developing state—therefore, China is
focused on recognition from both its intervention peer groups: the United States,
the United Kingdom, and France—the western, permanent members of the UN
Security Council, the so-called “P3”—and also representatives of the Global South,
which include geographic-specific regional organizations and often the host
state.⁴⁸ Second, this book takes status seriously as a variable, and does not treat
status as a constant value to China. The UN Security Council is an excellent social
environment to examine China’s status considerations, and I isolate the causal
mechanism and conditions under which status can matter enough to China to
impact its response to intervention. China is most concerned about securing status
in the wake of a status trigger, and when its peer groups congregate around the
same policy position; when its peer groups remain cohesive, with no individual
state defections, and when peer groups can make an unresponsive China pay
social costs for bucking group standards of good behavior. With this insight,
I address a broader question about the limits of status as a variable in Chinese
foreign policy.
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Working inductively, I develop my theory based on an extensive collection of


data, accepting the bounded transparency regarding ongoing, sensitive foreign
policy matters. For the history of China and intervention, the book relies on
primary sources to include UN Security Council resolutions, verbatim records and
official statements, and secondary documents from news reports to academic
texts. In order to uncover the “dogs that didn’t bark”—those voting options
declined by Beijing, for example—I conducted over 200 interviews with UN
officials and Chinese foreign policy elites during multiple fieldtrips—primarily
in Beijing and New York. Respecting interviewee anonymity, and also that readers
may prefer sources that they can cross-check, I cite these interview materials
sparingly. Participant observation at UN Headquarters was crucial to understand
the near deference given to China because of its position as an anti-intervention,
veto player. I created a dataset of Chinese-language analysis on regime change and
intervention using the Chinese National Knowledge Index database, coding each
article in order to understand how regime change was considered across time by
Chinese analysts, scholars, and foreign policy elites. With these data sources, I am
able to distill a rich study, going beyond works available in breadth and in depth,
primarily focusing on the 2000–2015 period.

Contributions

This book makes three broad contributions to the International Relations


literature.
First, it shows how status—often conceived of as a cause for conflict—is a
determinant for cooperation. By treating status as a variable and not an unprob-
lematic given in international politics, I take seriously the need to analyze and
specify its effect on achieving cooperation at the international level. In key cases,
China’s behavior is inconsistent with rationalist arguments that emphasize a
consequentialist calculation of material interests. By detecting and explicating
this variable, I am able to offer better explanations than those outcomes predicted
by the traditional lens of state security. The book highlights the effects of holding
more than one status at a time—as China is simultaneously a great power and a
Global South state in regards to intervention—and unpacks how status works in
practice. Much of the status literature focuses on how a state can gain entry to a
new peer group through status signaling, status-seeking behavior, and status
attribution—but “requesting membership” to a peer group is not the same thing
as being a member of the group. China’s membership in its intervention peer
groups is explicitly negotiated by its self-identification and behavior. But what
does it mean to be a member of the peer group that itself is debating its
intersubjective standard of good behavior? Or when that standard of good behav-
ior suddenly shifts in favor of robust action, which China is reluctant to support?
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The book shows how the process of negotiation and normative contestation
within peer groups affects China’s assessments of its desire to maintain status.
Second, the book offers a new lens to analyze how rising powers wrestle with
attaining great power and maintaining “lower” status. After all, rising powers are
states in status transition per se, and the assumption that these states automatic-
ally seek to “drop” lower status should be considered. Understanding how rising
powers reconcile their status dilemmas—by this I mean the dilemma of how they
secure status recognition from all their groups, as opposed to which of their status
groups—is one of the broader issues under scrutiny here. In so doing, the book
considers at what costs rising powers are willing to pursue status goals, even when
the definitions of being in-status are changing or ill-defined. Addressing status
dilemmas is a means to categorize these rising power states, differing from
traditional definitions that typically emphasize material factors as identifiers—
specifically preponderance of global military capabilities;⁴⁹ changes in relative
material capabilities and influence;⁵⁰ global rather than regional interests,⁵¹ or
seeking recognition as a great power.⁵²
Third, I extend analysis into the relationship between UN Security Council-
sanctioned intervention and regime change, which is surprisingly under-studied.
Both subjects often require the use of force in explicit violation of state sover-
eignty—the cornerstone of modern international relations—and are costly in
blood, treasure, and have the potential to exacerbate existing conflict.⁵³ However,
the literature largely approaches regime change from the lens of US foreign policy,
reflecting the experience of the dominant state in the system.⁵⁴ Shifting the focus
to the UN Security Council—the one institution explicitly and directly charged
with governing international peace and security—allows us to reflect on the reality
that the UN Security Council, and its composite members, must navigate such
matters in consideration of intervention.
In terms of the Chinese foreign policy literature, I make three key contributions
also. First, I contribute to our understanding of under what conditions status is
pursued by China. China’s focus on status is an obsession: since the 1990s, Chinese
elites have “evoked ‘international status’ (guoji diwei) as if it were the most
desirable value, the one that leads to power, security, and respect.”⁵⁵ Suzuki notes
that there is “a curious fixation” with status within China,⁵⁶ while Deng notes that
“[j]udging by the frequency of the term’s use in official Chinese discourse and
scholarly analyses, [China] may very well be the most status-conscious country in
the world.”⁵⁷ Indeed Chinese analysts have attempted all sorts of measures to
establish China’s status.⁵⁸ Scholars have long noted that China is a state particu-
larly concerned about its status,⁵⁹ but have been unable to explain the occasional
willingness of China to sacrifice status and stand alone in foreign policy decisions
at the UN Security Council.⁶⁰ When it comes to outlining scope conditions for
when a state should care most about its status, the literature offers scant guidance:
either when states are novices to a community, therefore, they are most eager to
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comply with norms to prove their membership,⁶¹ or peer groups can only exert
pressure on matters that are not behind China’s “firewall” of core interests.⁶² Once
China perceives UN Security Council issues to touch upon Taiwan, for example,
China is assumed to be immune to pressures from peer groups. As one senior UN
official noted, “China needs to be a good citizen—but only up to a certain point;
‘One China’ is an existential issue . . . diplomatic relations with Taiwan are the red
line not to be crossed.”⁶³
However, China is no longer a novice at the United Nations. Having assumed
its seat at the UN Security Council over forty years ago, China has a steady record
of gradual, scaled engagement with intervention problems. Furthermore, the
concept of the core interests “firewall” is also unclear. In the Libya case alone,
the UN Security Council unanimously referred a sitting head of state to the
International Criminal Court, and with even more of a surprise, China abstained
on imposing a no-fly zone on the regime.⁶⁴ Both these votes occurred against a
vivid public discourse on regime change calling for the explicit overthrow of
Gaddafi. If the core interest scope condition should hold, then one would expect
vetoes against both proposed resolutions—after all protecting the longevity of the
Chinese Communist Party, by ensuring against precedent for such coercive
regime change abroad, is the paramount interest for China.
Second, I contribute to our understanding of China as a rising power and its
involvement in multilateral security institutions. Despite China’s growing import-
ance for the intervention regime, China position on intervention remains poorly
understood, with only a small body of sporadically produced, primarily historical
scholarly works.⁶⁵ The copious research into intervention and the literature on the
workings of the UN Security Council has scant mention of China.⁶⁶ Examining
China and intervention contributes to the debate on the rise of China and what
type of global security provider China will be.⁶⁷ For the most part, the literatures
on rising powers and global governance have been left separate.⁶⁸ While there is a
growing literature on China and peacekeeping, intervention, and specialist secur-
ity regimes—there is yet to be a systematic investigation of China’s response
regarding regime change and intervention. The book explores China’s reluctance
to condone regime change. As Philpott argues, sovereignty is conceptualized in
phases, with periods of “revolution,” where its normative content is redesigned.⁶⁹
Sovereignty is a social construct open to reinterpretation by states that populate
the system.⁷⁰ Periodically, the UN Security Council inserts itself in overriding state
sovereignty, and since the 1990s, the UN Security Council has sometimes viewed
mass violations of human rights as threats to international peace and security to
be addressed through even non-consensual intervention. The limits of interven-
tion are rigorously contested and a complex normative landscape links interven-
tion to a broader discussion concerning regime change. Regime change is
explicitly focused on fundamental transformations of domestic institutions—so
not only is it about relinquishing control over territorial sovereignty (as in the case
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
A young lady, newly married, being obliged to show her husband
all the letters she wrote, sent the following to an intimate friend:

I cannot be satisfied, my dearest friend,


blest as I am in the matrimonial state,
until I confide to your most friendly keeping
trusting to your interest in what interests me,
the various deep sensations which swell
with the liveliest feelings of satisfaction
my almost bursting heart. I tell you, my dear
husband is one of the most amiable of men.
I have been married nearly seven weeks, and
have never found the least possible reason to
repent the day that joined us. My husband is
in person and manners far from resembling those
ugly, cross, old, disagreeable and jealous
monsters, who think by confining to secure
a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a
bosom friend and confidant and not as a
plaything or menial slave the woman
chosen to be his companion. Neither party
he frequently says, ought to obey implicitly,
but each yield to the other in turn.
I know my husband loves nothing more
than he does me; he flatters me more
than the glass, and his intoxication
(for I must so call the excess of his love,)
often makes me blush for the unworthiness
of its object, and wish I could be more deserving
of the man whose name I bear. To
say all in one word, my dearest friend, and to
crown the whole, my former gallant lover
is now my indulgent husband. My fondness
is returned, and I might have married
a prince, without the felicity I find with
him! Adieu! May you be blest as I am unable
to wish that I could be more
happy.

(The key to the above letter is to omit every alternate line:


reading the first, third, fifth, &c., consecutively.)
It is said that among ancient Christian devices the figure of a fish
occurs very frequently, with the inscription anthropou (in Greek
letters), signifying of man. The following explanation has been given:
The Greek word for fish is ichthus, and each of the five letters
composing the Greek word, (ch and th being each represented by
only one letter,) is the initial of a significant word, as follows:

iesus—Jesus,
christos—Christ,
theou—of God,
uios—Son,
soter—Saviour.

The whole, followed by anthropou, (the word inscribed upon the


figure of the fish,) forms a profession of Christian faith:
JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, SAVIOUR OF MEN.

Pilate’s question addressed to our Lord, “What is truth?” “Quid


est Veritas?” contains in itself, by a perfect anagram, its own answer:
“Est vir qui adest:” “It is the Man who stands before you.”

When “I cry that I sin” is transposed, it is clear


My resource, “Christianity,” soon will appear.

The following very curious sentence, “Sator arepo teret opera


rotas,” is not first-class Latin, but may be freely translated: “I cease
from my work; the mower will wear his wheels.” It is, in fact,
something like a nonsensical verse, but has these peculiarities: 1st.
It spells backward and forward the same. 2d. Then, the first letter of
each word spells the first word. 3d. Then, all the second letters of
each word spell the second word. 4th. Then, all the third, and so on
through, the fourth and fifth. 5th. Then, commencing with the last
word, the last letter of each word spells the first word. 6th. Then, the
next to the last, and so on, through.

The lines which constitute the Pyramid below, may be read from
the base upward, or from the apex downward, indifferently.

There
For aye
To stay,
Commanding,
’Tis standing,
With God-like air,
S u b l i m e l y f air.
Its form declaring,
Its height admiring,
Looks on it from afar
Lo! every s m i l i n g star.
To raise the pile to heaven
These beauteous stones are given,
Each prayer for truth-inspiring light,
Each manly struggle for the right,
Each kindly word to cheer the lowly,
E a c h a s p i r a t i o n f o r t h e holy,
E a c h s t r o n g t e m p t a t i o n overcome,
Each clamorous passion held in silence dumb.
As it arises slowly toward the upper heaven
Stone after stone until the mass is given.
Its base upon the earth, its apex in the skies,
The good man’s character, a pyramid doth rise.
“Revolution” is transposed “to love ruin,” and “French Revolution,”
“Violence run forth.”
One of the prettiest of modern anagrams is “Florence
Nightingale,” “Flit on, cheering angel.”

If the name Napoleon be successively “beheaded” till only two


letters are left, each remainder forms a significant word; and these
words, combined in a certain manner, form a concise sketch of
Napoleon the First. Thus:
Napoleon, Apoleon, Poleon, Oleon,
destroying, cities, destructive,
Leon, Eon, On,
lion, going about, being.

Napoleon, on, oleon, leon, eon, apoleon, poleon.


Napoleon being a destructive lion, going about destroying cities.
The following sentence of only thirty-four letters contains all the
letters of the alphabet:
John quickly extemporized five tow bags.

HISTORY.
Sir Walter Raleigh, in his prison, was composing the second
volume of his “History of the World.” Leaning on the sill of his
window, he meditated on the duties of the historian to mankind,
when suddenly his attention was attracted by a disturbance in the
court yard before his cell. He saw one man strike another whom he
supposed by his dress to be an officer; the latter at once drew his
sword, and ran the former through the body. The wounded man
felled his adversary with a stick, and then sank upon the pavement.
At this juncture the guard came up, and carried off the officer
insensible, and then the corpse of the man who had been run
through.
Next day Raleigh was visited by an intimate friend, to whom he
related the circumstances of the quarrel, and its issue. To his
astonishment, his friend unhesitatingly declared that the prisoner had
mistaken the whole series of incidents which had passed before his
eyes.
The supposed officer was not an officer at all, but the servant of a
foreign ambassador; it was he who had dealt the first blow; he had
not drawn his sword, but the other had snatched it from his side, and
had run him through the body before any one could interfere;
whereupon a stranger, from among the crowd, knocked the murderer
down with his stick; and some of the foreigners belonging to the
ambassador’s retinue carried off the corpse.
Raleigh’s friend added that the Government had ordered the
arrest and immediate trial of the murderer, as the man assassinated
was one of the principal servants of the Spanish ambassador.
“Excuse me,” said Raleigh, “but I cannot have been deceived as
you suppose, for I was eye-witness to the events, which took place
under my own window; and the man fell there on that spot where you
see a paving stone standing up above the rest.”
“My dear Sir Walter,” replied his friend, “I was sitting on that stone
when the fray took place, and I received this slight scratch on my
cheek in snatching the sword from the murderer. Upon my word of
honor, you were deceived in every particular.”
Sir Walter, when alone, took up the second volume of his history,
which was in manuscript, and, contemplating it, thought: “If two men
see the same thing so differently—nay, if I cannot believe my own
eyes, how can I be assured of the truth of a tithe of the events which
happened ages before I was born?” and he flung the manuscript into
the fire.
Charles Dudley Warner, travelling in Nubia and Egypt, asserts
that “The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment” is the best history ever
written. In the light of the above facts, perhaps it is.

ST. ANTHONY’S FISH-SERMON.


From a German versification of a passage from the works of
Abraham à Santa Clara, a Jesuit preacher of the Seventeenth
Century.

St. Anthony, one day


Found the Church empty, Sunday:
So he goes to the river,
A discourse to deliver:
They’re ready to listen—
Their tails flop and glisten.

The carps, those old scorners,


Come out of their corners;
Their carping suspended,
Their jaws wide extended,
(Ears wanting—) to swallow
Remarks that might follow.

The pouts, cross-grained pouters—


Those well-known come-outers,—
For this once go-inners,
Confessed themselves sinners.
The pouts said they never
Heard a sermon so clever.

Crabs and mud-turtles also,


That usually crawl so,
And in dirt their heads bury,
Came up in a hurry.
Crabs and turtles had never
Heard sermon so clever.

Eels and sturgeons, best livers


Of all in the rivers—
Forsaking their dinners
Bewailed themselves sinners.
Eels and sturgeons had never
Heard sermon so clever.

And lastly, those odd fish


We mortals call codfish—
Their glass eyes distended—
Devoutly attended,
Like rational creatures,
This greatest of preachers.

And dog-fish and cat-fish,


And flounders and flat-fish,
And, finally, all fish,
Both great fish and small fish,
Came swimming and squirming
In shoals to the sermon;
And all said they never
Had heard one so clever.

But when it was ended,


To their business all wended;
The pikes to their thieving,
The eels to good living;
The crab still went crooked,
The codfish was stupid:
Yet none of them ever
Heard sermon so clever!

A susceptible youth addressed the following highly classical letter


to a young lady whose poetical effusions, dated “Pine Woods,” had
won his heart:
Permittere me dicere, carissima puella, ego habeo visus vestris
dulces funes in papyrus. Ego lignum simile videre te plurimo. Ego
nosco nos lignum autumnus in amore cum unus alter. Tuus versus
spectaculum genius et tener cors. Ego lignum calcitro tuum durum
cordatum patrem ex portis, et ego possum duo, si ille erat non
complacens et omnis rectus. Volo ad vistare te, sed non nosco ubi
Pinus Sylva sit. Prendam Erie maledictum-viam? Ubi est id? Ero
membrum legis, proximo vero, et tun, cum pocket libro pleno
stamporum, cano in manu, silko castore super capito, ego non curo
pro omnibus tauricanibus in Pino-silva, nam meum canum est fors,
et decutiam sua capita—sed sufficit.
Omnium pro te,
Unus qui amat.

FELIS ET MURES.
BY GREENE KENDRICK.

Felis sedit by a hole;


Intenta she, cum omne soul,
Prendere rats;
Mice cucurrerunt over the floor,
In numero, duo, tres, or more,
Obliti cats.

Felis saw them oculis;


“I’ll have them,” inquit she, “I guess,
Dum ludunt;”
Tunc illa crept toward the group,—
“Habeam,” dixit, “good rat soup;
Pingues sunt!”

Mice continued all ludere;


Intenti they in ludum vere,
Gaudenter:
Tunc rushed the felis into them,
Et tore them omnes, limb from limb,
Violenter.

MORAL.
Mures, omnes, now beware!
Of hungry felis have a care
Nox et die;
Si hoc facis “verbum sat;”
Avoid a huge and hungry cat,
Studiose!

Ego nunquam audivi such terrible news,


As at this present tempus my senses confuse;
I am drawn for a miles, I must go cum Marte,
Et, communis ense, engage Bonapar-te;
But soon we will show to this Corsican vaunter,
That, though times may change, BRITONS never mutantur.
Dr. Porson.

Tres fratres stolidi


Took a boat for Philippi;
Stormum surgebat
Et boatum overturnebat;
Omnes drownerunt
Qui swimmere non potuerunt
THE RHINE.

Oh the Rhine, the Rhine, the Rhine!


Comme c’est beau! wie schön! che bello!
He who quaffs thy Lust and Wein,
Morbleu! is a lucky fellow.

How I love thy rushing streams,


Groves of ash and birch and hazel,
From Schaffhausen’s rainbow beams,
Jusqu ’à l’echo d’ Oberwesel!

Oh, que j’aime the Brüchen, when


The crammed Dampschiff gayly passes!
Love the bronzed pipes of thy men,
And the bronzed cheeks of thy lasses!

Oh, que j’aime the “oui,” the “bah,”


From the motley crowd that flow,
With the universal “ja,”
And the Allgemeine “So!”

LATIN POEM.
FOR THE LEARNED.

Hei didulum, didulum, atque iterum didulum,


Felisque, Fidisque!
Vacca super Lunæ cornua prosiluit
Nescio qua catulus risit dulcedine ludi,
Abstunt et turpi lanx cochleare fuga!

FRENCH SONG.
Chantons une chanson à six sous,
La poche pleine de blé;
Vingt-quatre oiseaux noirs
Cuits dans un pâté!
Quand le pâté s’ouvrit,
Les oiseaux levaient leurs voix;
N’était-ce pas un joli plat,
Mettre devant le Roi?

ICH BIN DEIN.


ENGLISH, LATIN, GREEK, FRENCH AND GERMAN “MACARONI.”

In tempus old a hero lived


Qui loved puellas deux,
He ne pouvait pas quite to say
Which one amabat mieux.

Dit-il lui-même, un beau matin,


“Non possum both avoir;
Sed si address Amanda Anne,
Then Kate and I have war!”

Amanda habet argent coin


Sed Kate has aureas curls
Et both sunt very agathæ
Et quite formosæ girls.

Enfin, the youthful anthropos


Philoun the duo maids,
Resolved proponere ad Kate
Avant cet evening’s shades.

Procedens then to Kate’s domo,


Il trouve Amanda there,
Kai quite forgot his late resolves
Both sunt so goodly fair.

Sed, smiling on the new tapis,


Between puellas twain,
Cœpit to tell his vœux to Kate
Dans un poëtique strain.
Mais, glancing ever and anon
At fair Amanda’s eyes,
Illæ non possunt dicere
Pro which he meant his sighs.

Each virgo heard his demi vow


With cheeks as rouge as wine,
And, offering each a milk-white hand,
Both whispered “Ich bin dein.”

MACARONIC ADVERTISEMENT.
An inn-keeper in Germany sets forth the accommodations of his
house in the following lines, inscribed upon one of its windows:

In questa casa trovarete


Toutes les choses que vous souhaitez;
Vinum bonum, costas, carnes,
Neat post-chaise, and horse and harness.

ANN HATHAWAY.
(PROBABLY NOT SHAKESPEARE’S.)

Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng,


With love’s sweet notes to grace your song,
To charm the heart in thrilling lay,
Listen to Ann Hathaway.
She hath a way to sing so clear,
Phœbus might, listening, stoop and hear:
To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,
And nature charm, Ann hath a way.
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway.

When Envy’s tongue and Rancor’s tooth


Do soil and bite fair worth and truth,
And merit to distress betray,
To soothe the soul, Ann hath a way.
She hath a way to chase despair;
To heal all grief, to cure all care,
Turn foulest night to fairest day,
Thou knowest, fond heart, Ann hath a way,
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway.

Tell not of gems the Orient list;


The diamond, topaz, amethyst,
The emerald mild, the ruby gay;
Talk of my gem Ann Hathaway.
She hath a way with her bright eye,
Their various lustre to defy;
The jewel she, and the foil they,
So sweet to look Ann hath a way.
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway.

But to my fancy were it given


To rate her charms, I’d call it heaven;
For, though a mortal made of clay,
Angels might love Ann Hathaway.
She hath a way so to control
And rapture the imprisoned soul,
And love and truth so to display
That to be heaven Ann hath a way.
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway.

INSTRUCTIVE FABLES.
THE DOG AND THE SPARE RIB.—A mastiff crossing a bridge and
bearing in his mouth a piece of meat, suddenly swallowed the meat.
He immediately observed that the shadow of the aforesaid in the
water had disappeared.
Moral: We learn from this fable that life is but a shadow.
THE ASS AND THE LOCOMOTIVE.—A donkey one day was quietly
munching thistles when he heard the screaming whistle of a
locomotive. Pricking up his ears, he started into a gallop and raced
across lots, with his tail high in the air.
Moral: This fable teaches what an ass he was.
THE MOUSE AND THE CAT.—A mouse once peeped from his hole
and saw a cat. The cat was looking the other way, and happened not
to see the mouse.
Nobody killed.
Moral: This little fable doesn’t teach anything.

PRONUNCIATION.
The difficulty of applying rules to the pronunciation of our
language may be illustrated in two lines, wherein the combination of
the letters ough is pronounced in no less than seven different ways,
viz: as o, uf, off, up, ow, oo, and ock.

Though the tough cough and hiccough plough me through,


O’er life’s dark lough my course I still pursue.

And in the subjoined couplets, which should be read rhymingly:

Peasant Arcadian, guiding the plough,


Loam on your garments, your aspect is rough.

Peasant imprudent, I hear you’ve a cough:


Do you feel sure you’re clad warm enough?

Home to your cottage, and bend o’er the trough,


Kneading the loaves of digestible dough.

Though the bread’s heavy, unsweetened and tough,


Well sharpened teeth can go easily through.
And the opposite difficulty, which sometimes occurs, of
determining the sense of a word from its pronunciation, is shown in
the following verses:

Write, we know, is written right,


When we see it written w-r-i-t-e;
But when we see it written r-i-g-h-t,
We know it is not written right.
For write, to have it written right,
Must not be written r-i-g-h-t, or r-i-t-e,
Nor yet must it be written w-r-i-g-h-t,
But w-r-i-t-e, for so ’tis written right.

Some one asks: “If W-o-r-c-e-s-t-e-r is pronounced Wooster,


wouldn’t r-o-r-c-e-s-t-e-r be an excellent way to spell rooster?”
That is “the English of it,” and, on the same principle—whatever it
is—C-h-o-l-m-o-n-d-e-l-e-y is pronounced Chumley; M-i-c-h-i-l-i-m-a-
c-i-n-a-c, Mackinaw; M-a-r-j-o-r-i-b-a-n-k-s, Marchbank; L-e-i-c-e-s-t-
e-r, Lester; N-o-r-w-i-c-h, Norrij, and C-o-l-o-n-e-l, Curnel.
The ways of English pronunciation are, indeed, past finding out.
So are the secret motives of those who, having once adopted a
false pronunciation, adhere to it in the face of all precept and
example; who persist in calling Garibaldi, Gar-i-bawld-i; guipure, gim-
pure; alpaca, al-a-pac-a; and a polonaise, a polo-nay. Of this class
was the young person of Boston—she couldn’t have been a young
person of BOSTON!—who, passing out of an Art Gallery with a friend
not long since, read aloud the inscription beneath a statuette of
Psyche, and pronounced it Pi-sish. Her friend mildly suggesting the
true pronunciation, the young person rejoined: “I know it. Some folks
call it Si-kee, and some Pi-sish. I like Pi-sish the best.”

THE QUESTION.
It is said that when a young lady enters society in one of our
leading Eastern cities, the question invariably asked about her, by
those who have not met her, is, in New York, “How much is she
worth?” in Baltimore, “How does she look?” in Boston, “What does
she know?” in Philadelphia, “Who is she?”

ALLITERATION.
The best specimen of alliteration in the English language is,
perhaps,

THE SIEGE OF BELGRADE.


An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,
Boldly, by battery, besieged Belgrade.
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Dealing destruction’s devastating doom;
Every endeavor engineers essay,
For fame, for fortune, fighting, furious fray!
Generals ’gainst generals grapple—Gracious God!
How honors Heaven heroic hardihood!
Infuriate, indiscriminate, in ill,
Kinsmen kill kindred—kindred kinsmen kill.
Labor low levels longest, loftiest lines,—
Men march ’mid mounds, ’mid moles, ’mid murderous mines.
Now noisy, noxious, numbers notice naught
Of outward obstacles opposing ought;
Poor patriots! partly purchased, partly pressed,
Quite quaking, quickly “Quarter! Quarter!” quest.
Reason returns; religious right redounds,
Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds.
Truce to thee, Turkey! triumph to thy train,
Unjust, unwise, unmerciful, Ukraine!
Vanish, vain victory! Vanish, victory vain!
Why wish we warfare! Wherefore welcome were
Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xavier!
Yield, yield, ye youths; ye yeomen yield your yell!
Zeno’s, Zarpater’s, Zoroaster’s zeal,
Attracting all, arms against arms appeal.

A droll example of French alliteration is the following inquiry as to


the efficacy of a certain remedy:

“Ton thé, a-t-il oté ta toux?”

One of the neatest of ACROSTICS was written by Desmond Ryan,


for the London Musical World:

Art and Genius burn within her,


Dearest fondling of the Graces!
Every charm is centered in her;
Like a poet’s page her face is!
In her voice the lark is thrilling—
Now to weep the heart is willing—
And now with joy and hope ’tis filling!

Praised, admired, two worlds all hail her—


Artless, pure, no tongues assail her!
Trust, love, triumph, never fail her!
Tell me, sooth, whose praise all that is?
I say, ADELINA PATTI’S!

But apropos of ingenuity, the author of the following exquisite


poem seems, without half trying, to have distanced all competitors.
Many years ago, twenty-five or thirty, perhaps, two Cincinnati
editors engaged in a newspaper controversy, which was, for a long
time, conducted with all candor and courtesy. At length, however,
one of them so far forgot himself as to become first personal, then
scurrilous, then virulent; and the other, at an early stage of this
radical change, quietly withdrew from the contest. Editor No. One
thereupon indulged in loud pæans of victory: he had spiked his
adversary’s guns, put him to rout, utterly demolished him. While he
was in this complacent frame of mind, he received from an
anonymous contributor a seasonable poem on SPRING, which he
published with a eulogium on its beauty, and a warmly-expressed
wish that he might often hear from its gifted author:

SPRING.
The genial Spring once more with chaplets crowned,
Has showered her choicest blessings all around.
Each silent valley, and each verdant lawn,
Enriched with flowers, looks smiling as the dawn;
Demure and modest here the violet grows,
In yonder garden blooms the blushing rose:
To these the lilac adds her fragrant dower
Of perfume cherished by the sun and shower:
Reviving Flora walks the world, a queen
Of kingdoms peerless as a fairy scene.
Far o’er the hills, in many a graceful line,
The rainbow blossoms of the orchard shine.
How softly mingled all their tints unite,
Embalm the air, and bless the grateful sight!
Sweet voices now are heard on every tree,
The breeze, the bird, the murmur of the bee;
And down the cliff, where rocks oppose in vain,
Runs the clear stream in music to the plain.
In noisy groups, far from their southern home,
Now ’round the lofty spire the swallows roam;
The fearless robin builds, with glossy leaves,
Her fragile nest beneath the farmer’s eaves;
Embowered in woods the partridge makes her bed
With silken moss o’er tender osiers spread:
Each happy bird expands his dappled wings,
Soars with his gentle mate and sweetly sings.
The sounds of early husbandry arise,
In pleasing murmurs, to the pale blue skies;
Shrill floats the ploughman’s whistle, while he speeds
Along the yielding earth his patient steeds.
Joyous the life which tills the pregnant soil,
And sweet the profits of the farmer’s toil:
Content, as smiling as an angel’s face,
Keeps peaceful vigil ’round his dwelling-place;
And gentle Hope, and Love, forever bright,
Smiling like seraphs in their bowers of light,
Salute his mornings, and embalm each night.

A few days passed, and this self-complacent gentleman had the


satisfaction of reading in a Boston paper that the editor of The Star in
the West had fully justified the acrostic contained in a late beautiful
poem on SPRING, by publishing and praising it in his paper.

EXTEMPORE SPEAKING.
It is no small thing to be called suddenly to address a public
meeting of any sort, and to find all your wits gone wool-gathering,
when you most require their services. Such being the case, and
standing admitted, the following speech of a compulsory order, at the
opening of a free hospital, is recommended as a model:
Gentlemen—ahem! I—I—I rise to say—that is, I wish to propose
a toast—wish to propose a toast. Gentlemen, I think that you’ll all
say—ahem—I think, at least, that this toast is, as you’ll all say, the
toast of the evening—toast of the evening. Gentlemen, I belong to a
good many of these things—and I say, gentlemen, that this hospital
requires no patronage—at least, you don’t want any
recommendation. You’ve only got to be ill—got to be ill. Another thing
—they are all locked up—I mean they are all shut up separate—that
is, they have all got separate beds—separate beds. Now, gentlemen,
I find by the report (turning over the leaves in a fidgety manner), I
find, gentlemen, that from the year seventeen—no, eighteen—no,
ah, yes, I’m right,—eighteen hundred and fifty—no, it’s a three, thirty-
six—eighteen hundred and thirty-six, no—less than one hundred and
ninety-three millions—no—ah? (to a committee-man at his side),
what? thank you!—thank you, yes—one hundred and ninety-three
thousand, two hundred and thirty-one! Gentlemen, I beg to propose:
Success to this Institution!
If no selections from the writings of our modern humorists,
Artemus Ward, P. V. Nasby, Mark Twain, and others, grace these
pages, the omission arises partly from the difficulty of selecting and
partly from the fact that these writings are only too well known for our
purpose. While the compiler has, doubtless, brought her readers
face to face with many of their old acquaintances, she naturally
prefers not to introduce those whom they are certain to meet every
day at their own tables. “There must be a line drawn somewhere.”
But there is a word to be said about K. N. Pepper, whose
irresistibly droll papers were contributed to the Knickerbocker
Magazine, early in the ’50’s. He was, in fact, pioneer in that region of
illiterature, in which so many others, since he withdrew, have
apparently settled for life. Artemus Ward learned from him (and
never hesitated to give him credit for the original idea,) the trick of
bad spelling, and caught many of his fantastic ways of thought. His
Betsey Jane was Pepper’s Hannah Gane amplified,—but the twins,
and the son who read the Clipper, and the daughter who delighted in
the Ledger, were original Wards. (And what a guardian they had, in
their hi-minded father!)
K. N. Pepper describes in the Knickerbocker, his first visit to New
York. He arrived there on the twenty-fifth of November, and that
anniversary suggested many solemn reflections. “I thinc,” he
pensively remarks, “that I see the British evacuating of the sitty. I
thinc I se them gathering up their goods and things. I thinc I hear
them cuss, and then I thinc I doant.”
Very suddenly he retired from the field, leaving his laurels to be
picked up and won by others, and presently disappeared from public
view. But it is possible that Mr. James W. Morris, of Onondaga
County, N. Y., could, if he chose, furnish some information
concerning him.[4]
The Widow Bedott, too, was precursor and prototype of Miss
Slimmins, Josiah Allen’s wife, and all of that ilk; and, among her
imitators, has, thus far, had no equal. Her prose was a model of
absurdity; but there are no words to characterize her poetry.

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