Speaker: Courtney Fung, Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Please note the different day and time for this Critical Issues talk.

***DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER, THIS LECTURE WILL NOW TAKE PLACE VIA ZOOM WEBINAR***
REGISTER AT: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_af-PQxTHQXaRabRNCONE6Q

China presents itself as a supporter of ‘true multilateralism,’ with the United Nations as a bedrock institution of global governance. The United Nations’ truly global reach, China’s UN Security Council veto, and position as the only legal representative of China in the UN system, makes the body a key forum for China’s foreign policy. China seeks reform from within the multilateral institution to have it better align with PRC foreign policy preferences.  Indeed, China’s well-reported multilateral rise is presumed to challenge US leadership in a Western-dominated UN system, especially in the wake of the recent US departure from various UN bodies. To assess whether China can achieve its UN ambitions, I first outline China’s power and influence against a basic heuristic of China’s UN contributions, before focusing on China’s self-proclaimed ‘global public goods’ campaign. I next turn to the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative to highlight how each of these Initiatives draw upon different facets of power, clarifying PRC tactics to promote these Initiatives within and through the UN system. My research draws mainly on written primary and secondary sources produced by PRC and UN elites, and supplemented by insights from PRC, US and UN officials in Washington, DC and New York City in May and June 2024, and Beijing in December 2025.

Dr. Courtney J. Fung is Associate Professor in the Discipline of Security Studies in the School of International Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She is concurrently Non-Resident Fellow at LSE IDEAS; the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; at Asia Society Australia, and at the Lowy Institute. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Georgetown University in spring 2024.  Her research focuses on how rising powers address the norms and provisions for global governance and international security, with a primary focus on China within the UN system. Courtney’s published research spans international civil service personnel contributions and human protection issues broadly defined (e.g. cyber norms, peacekeeping, intervention, and the responsibility to protect) and the effects of status for cooperation and international norm development. Courtney’s book, China and Intervention at the UN Security Council: Reconciling Status (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the BISA LHM Ling Outstanding First Book Prize. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.  She serves as an associate editor for H-DIPLO ISSF, Contemporary Security Policy and the Australian Journal of International Affairs.