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This paper discusses the application of the non-interference principle in the context of China’s security policy in Africa, to determine the extent to which we are witnessing an evolution in the application of this principle. Indeed, as seen with the recent opening of the military base in Djibouti or with China’s contribution to peace talks in South Sudan, it would appear that the non-intervention principle is undergoing a course reversal. This paper will argue that, in spite of these apparent shifts, there has been no fundamental change to the application of this principle. To make this point, this article applies Ren’s typology, which characterises three levels of nuance in the forms that the application of non-interference has taken in practice. This typology is then applied in a comparative manner across the four following components of China’s security policy in Africa: peacekeeping operations; military cooperation; naval power projection; and crisis management mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the role of the BASIC countries — Brazil, South Africa, India, and China — in UN climate change negotiations. The paper explores the formation and evolution of the group, and focuses on how the four major developing countries of China, India, Brazil, and South Africa have coordinated their positions and acted jointly to achieve an agreed outcome with other players in the recent UN Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, based on an analysis of their country profiles and negotiation positions on a wide range of climate issues. The paper argues that the emergence of the BASIC Group is a reflection of the ongoing power shift from EU–US agreement to BASIC–US compromise in UN climate negotiations since the early 1990s. The rise of BASIC also has its roots in recent global market dynamics and further reflects the power transformation in the economic dimension of the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]