The work seeks to examine China’s response to NATO’s humanitarian intervention in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, through the lens of the non-interference principle and the emerging doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). This situation presents dual reactions from the great powers, while NATO justified Operation Allied Force on humanitarian factor, China and Russia firmly opposed the intervention as a violation of the sovereignty and a critical bypass of the United Nations Security Council. According on recent peer-reviewed scholars, this paper argues that China’s opposition to the Kosovo intervention was not merely a diplomatic position, yet reflected a deeply rooted foreign policy worldview that prioritizes state sovereignty, multilateralism and non-interference over any unilateral humanitarian action. This work further contends that China’s stance on Kosovo established a pattern that continues to define Beijing’s approach to international crises today as: Libya, Syria crisis and Ukraine. By analyzing the Kosovo case in the broader context to China’s evolving policy of non-intervention, this work contributes to the current scholarly debates about the legality of humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty in international law.
Humanitarian intervention vs. Non-interference: china’s response to nato’s kosovo operation in 1998s.
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