Professor Rosemary Foot, FBA is a leading British scholar of international relations and political science. She is Professor of International Relations and John Swire Senior Research Fellow at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on security studies, human rights, and international relations in the Asia-Pacific region. In recognition of her outstanding academic contributions, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1996.

Gulan: In your recent work on U.S.–China relations and the changing international order, you have argued that strategic competition does not necessarily preclude coexistence. Given the current trajectory of relations between Washington and Beijing, what conditions do you believe are necessary to prevent rivalry from escalating into open conflict?

Professor Rosemary Foot: There are indications, manifest in the last couple of years of the US Biden administration and currently in the era of Trump and Xi, that the two states have come realise a need to manage the strategic competition that is at the core of the tensions between them. It is undeniable that all attempts to stabilize this bilateral relationship are fraught with difficulties, including requiring acceptance by the United States that it no longer enjoys the primacy in the international system that it once held. The US government also needs to handle China’s key sovereignty claims – particularly the Taiwan issue -- in ways that both deter Beijing from initiating violent resolution, and reassure it that the US will not play a role in escalating those conflicts. On Beijing’s part, it needs to temper a perspective that has emphasized that America’s main aim is to “encircle, contain and suppress” China and halt its ascendancy. Regular attacks on aspects of US foreign policy and threatened use of supply-chain dominance to halt sales of critical materials need to be reduced in favour of China offering potential solutions and jointly agreed positions. Beijing needs also to accept that states and peoples in its region have for decades valued the US security presence not least because its own intentions generate varying degrees of concern and unease.

Both the United States and China seem, however, to have accepted that a war between them in the Asia-Pacific region would be hugely destructive and that this outcome needs to be removed as a possibility. How can this rivalry be prevented from escalating into open conflict? This must start modestly, first with the establishment of regularized channels of communication in the hopes that where common interests are identified progress can later be made. Commitments entered into by both sides need to be of a kind that can be verified while in progress and on completion. This was possible in earlier US-China negotiations and could be so again. At later stages of trust-building, Beijing and Washington could build serious communication channels covering, for example, AI safety, maritime crisis prevention, and the prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The trade regime also requires serious attention beyond concerns about the bilateral trading relationship.

Gulan: Your scholarship has extensively examined China's engagement with international institutions and global governance. In light of China's growing international influence, do you believe Beijing is primarily seeking to reform the existing international order, replace it, or operate within it while gradually reshaping its norms and practices?

Professor Rosemary Foot: I take the position that China has a variegated approach to the matter of international order transition. It is far more revisionist with respect to the international human rights regime, for example, than it is in the economic domain. If we examine this question through the lens of its involvement in multilateral international organizations, we can witness China’s increased involvement in the multilateral space, both through the initiation of new organizations – like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Shanghai Cooperation Organization – as well as being a founding member of such organizations as the BRICS (and now BRICS+ following expansion). Close examination of its behaviour within such organizations demonstrates that China is a powerful, but one of a number, of global reordering agents, constantly engaged with matters of international order at a time of apparent order transition. What it is attempting to do is to re-weight practice towards state primacy, the reduction of what it would see as mainly Western-imposed external economic and political conditionalities, larger representation for the Global South, and greater prominence for Chinese-style development models. Persistent and specific policy threads include reinforcement of the norm of non-interference in domestic affairs, reinforcement of political regime security, reducing exposure to US-led political and economic coercion. However, China cannot push these agendas too far because features associated with institutional design, rhetorical attachment to the notion of sovereign equality, and its dependence on global markets continue to encourage significant engagement with the existing international order.

Gulan: In your work on China's human rights diplomacy, you have analyzed Beijing's efforts to influence international human rights discourse and institutions. How do you assess China's success in shaping global human rights norms, and what implications might this have for the future of international human rights governance?

Professor Rosemary Foot: China’s human rights diplomacy has shown a persistent desire to reshape international human rights bodies, covering both their institutional design features as well as their normative priorities.

The success of this activity is apparent, though not universally so. At the Human Rights Council (HRC), for example, China has been instrumental in weakening the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process and in promoting concepts that prioritize development and state sovereignty over the protection of individual rights. Beijing has also sought to reduce the influence of country-specific resolutions and other mechanisms that publicly scrutinize governments for human rights abuses.

Many states support China because they agree that human rights legislation interferes too directly into their domestic affairs and compromises their sovereignty; others support Beijing because it is a major economic partner and an important source of investment. These developments suggest that the future of international human rights governance is likely to become increasingly contested, with competing understandings of the relationship between sovereignty, development, and universal human rights.

Gulan: Recent developments in the Indo-Pacific, including heightened tensions surrounding Taiwan and increasing strategic competition between the United States and China, have renewed concerns about regional stability. From your perspective, what are the greatest challenges to security in the Asia-Pacific region today, and what mechanisms remain available to prevent escalation?

Professor Rosemary Foot: I have referenced some of this in my response to question one. To elaborate a bit here, the matter of Taiwan, and sovereignty disputes in the South and East China seas if handled badly remain among the most serious threats to regional stability. The rapid expansion of military capabilities, increasing strategic rivalry between the United States and China, and the absence of sufficient trust between the parties all heighten the possibility of miscalculation.

Mechanisms that remain available include maintaining open military-to-military communication channels, strengthening crisis-management procedures, supporting diplomatic engagement through regional institutions, and developing practical agreements on areas such as maritime safety and emerging technologies. These confidence-building measures cannot eliminate strategic competition, but they can reduce the risks of unintended escalation.

Gulan: China has long emphasized sovereignty and territorial integrity in its foreign policy while simultaneously expanding its economic and diplomatic presence in Iraq and the wider Middle East. How does Beijing view the Kurdistan Regional Government as an autonomous region within Iraq, and what opportunities and challenges does China's growing engagement in Iraq present for the Kurdistan Region? More broadly, how can the Kurdistan Region best position itself to benefit from China's expanding role in the region?

Professor Rosemary Foot: I have no specific understanding of how China views the Kurdistan Regional Government. The only general point I can offer is that the PRC is a unitary state led by a single party, the Chinese Communist Party, and it has consistently emphasized the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity in its foreign policy. As a result, Beijing's engagement with the Kurdistan Region is likely to remain firmly situated within the framework of its broader relationship with the Iraqi state.