Can China’s Developmental Peace Be an Alternative to Liberal Peace? A Critical Feminist Interrogation

Abstract

A growing body of literature within international relations (IR) has attempted to understand China’s approach to peacebuilding, so-called developmental peace, mostly in relation to critiques of liberal peace. The literature shares an assumption that developmental peace is distinct from liberal peace and discusses whether Chinese peacebuilding efforts might function as an alternative to the liberal approach. The discussion largely draws on conventional IR perspectives involving only limited engagement with critical scholars. It therefore lacks analysis of hierarchies related to gender and local power relations. By contrast, this article critically interrogates existing arguments to examine the extent to which developmental peace differs from liberal peace and in what sense it can be seen as an alternative. Informed by feminist IR, the article explores three core elements of developmental peace: developmentalism, the absence of the political and South-South cooperation. It shows that developmental peace largely replicates and reinforces the limitations of liberal peace by marginalising women and minority groups, and failing to prioritise local needs. Based on these findings, it argues that China might be an emerging actor that, in a nominal sense, can diversify the field, but that developmental peace does not constitute an alternative perspective in any substantive sense.